A moment of Skin

Yesterday was a slightly surreal moment. A while ago Myke Gray talked about me joining Skin for the encore at the London show on their UK tour. I thought great, however if I’m totally honest here, I’m so used to musicians saying one thing then conveniently forgetting than I kind of put it out my mind.

Anyway the day of the gig, well I did have a little strum before I left only because sometimes things amazing happen, and I have had some rather amazing moments since I get involved with the whole Skin thing.

Anyhow I went back stage and helped then to unwrap DVDs ready for signing as ALL the DVDs sold are fully autographed as are the new CD too. While down there Myke mentioned about the encore again, and I was quite knocked out, there was one stumble I was worried Nev might not be happy about it as I would be playing one of his gorgeous Strat’s, he did go a little quiet.

Just before the show I checked with Myke and he said that everything was cool, and I spoke to Nev’s brother Iain who was across it all and I tried on one of Nevs guitars just to make sure the strap wasn’t to long, It was a little but I could cope.

Anyhow the gig started and the band played a blinder it was as good as Wolverhampton earlier in the year if not more so, though Wolverhampton will always be a special moment.

I managed to do a swift camera tape change before the encore then I walked back and Iain handed me the guitar, I was slightly shitting myself, remember it was a full house and I has never strummed a note with the band before. Nev then introduces me and then also brings on Toby Jepson (form Little Angles / Gun who was also supporting).

Then its 1,2,3,4 Boff a very fast 4 minutes take place. Now the first thing that ran through my mind was not am I playing the right notes, because I knew I was, but it was bloody hell this is a REALLY nice guitar. And I almost forgot I was on stage! Then the second half I was more into it. I could hear every note I was playing unlike the vast majority of All Living Fear gigs. Then in a flash it was all over and I was back in the pit with my TV camera.

Afterwards when I said tad a to the guys Nev said something really nice to me about my playing, that really just rounded the night off perfectly for me.

What a night.

So after a good night in Glasgow it was off to the final show of the tour, Sunderland.

It was a relatively quick drive down the 175 miles to the hotel, It was nice to stay in an old fashioned Travelodge, the Glasgow one the night before was rubbish, though they did do an all you can eat breakfast for something like 7.50 and Tony made the most of it.

Once we got to the hotel I made my last blog then headed off to the venue, The Cruxshadows were still sound checking, they have a very slick slow, but they want to get things Just right, not that we were worried as time wasn’t pressing. We had a good sound check, I could hear everything clearly on stage, and I was still a bit put off after the monitors disappeared last night during one of the songs.

In the back stage area there was a mobile radio station set up, DJ Ghost presents a program on Local Radio up there every week and they did it live from the gig, which was rather cool.

Anyhow, we went to the local weatherspoons for dinner, they do a deluxe posh Veggie burger there now, I had that without Chips, which would have just been way too much.

When we got back we saw Aria had hit the stage, this was a singer, and keyboard player affaire, she was going down pretty well with the audience.

Then it was our turn, we rushed to get on as if we went on before time we could have a longer set, that being said, our set was 33 minutes, and we had a 30 minutes set, and by going on earlier we actually came off before time so that all worked out well.

Now the set list as promised.
..
the Full tour set was

Each and Every Way
Jessica
Home Too Soon
Wait for Yesterday (This had the working title of Power of Drums or Pod)
The Living
Wait Here (For You)
The Widow’s Blame
Tomorrow
Stranger To None

For Sunderland we dropped Each and Home, as well as the intro tape

The set went down well enough, and we then did an interview on Ghosts radio show. Got to see a little of the Cruxshadows set which ended up in chaos, basically they always drag people from the audience onto the stage, and they all have a jog around, except the security didn’t quite see it this way, and stormed boots in on stage and basically tried to stop it, this ended up in the set stopping, and really put a bit of a damper on what was a rather good gig. Still the people there enjoyed the show, just a shame it has to be ruined in this way.

So the day after, I overslept and it was time to go home, we spent in total about 13 hours traveling, as we had to comer to Devon via Huntingdon to drop Nev off, there was a nice garden center that we had as a drop off point, point of interest was they had some lovely parrots in there.

So we got home unloaded.

This tour has been a great deal of fun, performance started off a bit ropy got better, there is still a lot of work to be done before we really nail it to the table, but we made solid progress. It looks like everyone concerned wants to do it again, I think the next tour will be when the weather is a bit more warmer.

The gang consisted of

Matthew North – Guitar and Vocals
Nevla – Guitar
Niall Parker – Bass
Steve Williams – Guitar

Crew
Tony Twinpeeks – Merch and Crew
Lee-Anne Burgess – Filming

The Possy
Suzanne, Natalie and Ian






Cruxshadows on Stage




Oops look what I nabbed




Niall saying ta da to Aria at the Travelodge



At the Drop off point in Huntingdon

Hi all

We arrived in the North East in good time, Just at the hotel, I nabbed Suzanne's mobile and have uploaded a few live shots for you.

Well last night was a great gig. Rockers is a proper live club venue, has loads of memorabilia all over the place, had a massive PA, and they even provide Marshall stacks as back line. That being said I still brought mine is, as we have ‘One guitarist too many’ !

Anyhow we were able to park directly outside the venue, and there was plenty of people to help. After a good sound check, the guy doing the PA happened to be Gun’s tour manager too boot, we went to the local weatherspoons for dinner and Iron Brew.

There were 2 support bands, I didn’t see much of the first band, as I was late back from food, the second band Cister Scalpal were good fun, they also dedicated a song to us, that’s always nice.

We went on stage and did our set, we went down VERY well with the audience, who were very much and younger audience, they really got into out stuff, I was actually feeling rather gob smacked by the reaction especially after talking to people afterwards.

On the way back from the gig Tony kept us all laughing our heads off with Jokes!

Well we will be shortly be leaving for Sunderland to support the Cruxshadows, Glasgow get 10/10 and we will be back sometime.





In the Travelodge


Cister Scaple




ALF in Weatherspoons



Steve Chilling



Drum skin signed by Jet Black and Rat Scabies



:)

Now that’s more like it!

We had a leisurely drive to Stockport, as we were already on the M6 It didn’t take long at all. We stopped off on the way, and dug out the trusty camping stove, and in the rain I was determined to make coffee and not pay rip off Costa prices, I succeeded at that!

We eventually found the travelodge we were staying in it was behind a massive complex but didn’t have a specific address, so sat nav got a bit lost!.

Anyhow, we were all knackered after the previous night, so we had a few hours rest and recuperation, once done we were all ready for the challenge ahead.

Got to the venue in good time, It was a really nice place, they had converted the upstairs of the very nice bulls head pub into a venue, had decent enough PA and monitors, and lights. Special mention goes to Danny who runs it, he books the bands, and even does the PA as well. We did manage to use up Every single input to his desk nothing was too much trouble, I wish all sound engineers were like him.

Now this was a metal night, and we were on in the middle, I think the logic behind this was we were the unknown quantity. It was a good social occasion with a few various mates turning up. The set was 10,000 times better than last night, both in terms of our performance, which in my case last night was a but ropy, and audience appreciation, far higher than before too. There was an incident of a few drunken locals arseing around, but they soon calmed down. But all in all a good solid gig.

The main band I will make special mention, Incidium do the metal thing, but they do it VERY well really tight and solid, and excellent musicianship, even Lee-Anne who doesn’t do metal at all enjoyed them. I apologize for not watching the first band Apollyon but I was saving my ears for our set, I did see a couple of numbers and they were solid too.

After we loaded up we were about to go, when we saw that the pub was still open, and Niall had the brain wave of why don’t we go back in the pub, so we had a nice long social with lots of coffee back in there, proper chill out aftershow, was all very nice.

On the way back we were entertained with Jokes courtesy of mr Twinpeeks and Mr Williams.

Its now 9.43 am and soon we have to think about going to Glasgow.




Pre Gig Stage




Look we are on tour :)




Lee-Anne and Helen




Andi and Niall




Tony and Steve



Incidium

Wolverhampton Giffard 28th Nov 2009




Lee-Anne and Nev Having a Strum




Tony the Merch



Matthew with Des from Balaam who helped out loading out (thanks mate)

Hi all

This is being written at the Travelodge in Stafford, the reason we are in Stafford is that the Travelodge we booked into was over sold, and they had to send us off to another one! Still its actually an advantage as it’s a lot quieter than if we had stayed in the city center

Anyhow I guess you want to know how last night went? Well as I said earlier, the sound check went very well and we popped to a pub up the road for some food.

The support band was Ted the promoters daughters band, and they were rather good, doing the modern indie pop things, they were very tight and for their first gig pretty amazing.

We went on stage at around 11.30 was a late show, we played out set, I’m not going to post the set list until after the tour.

There was in essence one major problem, the sound engineer had simply disappeared nowhere to be seen, so we did have a problem of constant feedback for most of the gig. This unfortunately put a bit of a damper on yours truly. Still were off to stockpot now for more rock and roll.

So hear I am in the Giffard Arms in Wolverhampton. The Drive up was good, we made a detour as part of the M5 was closed, however, this also saved is 10 miles in travel too.




Sound check was good, we did a little bit of tweaking to the overall sound just to get it right. They have great monitors here as good on stage sound is always good to have.




Funny thing in the room where the gig takes place we just did a really good rendition of Jessica acoustically with Nev on Guitar, Lee-Anne on Bass and me and Niall singing. Maybe ill post a video of it he he.

This is a very nervous time for me, I haven’t done a tour for 11 years, and it didn’t help that my main music PC’s had drive decided to die today, fortunately most of my documents are on other drives, but still a pain in the arse!

Today was spent packing kit, double checking that I had everything, and doing more vocal practice, I feel I might be annoying people in the van singing Gug, Me, and La all the way up to Wolverhampton!!!

As the other half pointed out today, this is also a tour where I’m with a completely new team, unfortunately, Martin who is normally with me whatever band I’m in is unable to do the merchandise as he’s ill and the doctor has signed him off, fortunately our good friend Tony is doing his shift.

I am though very excited about the tour, and I hope to see a few old friends on the way and make many new ones too.

So yesterday the 22nd November we ventured to London for the final All Living Fear rehearsal before the band goes on tour. Steve and Nev have known each other a little while but Niall had yet to meet either, though the night before it was a evening in Camden to celebrate Steve’s birthday and Niall came out as well, fortunately they hit it off well , and by Sunday a jolly time was had.

We got to terminal and had a fine drop of soup for the organic café round the corner, well recommend it if you are ever in the London bridge area.

So we set up and practiced in earnest, I got to say the first run through was a bit shabby none of us were getting it together, this was part not being able to suss the layout of the mixing desk, about half way through I had a fiddle and got thing s working better then we had a break for coffee, they have a reasonable cappuccino machine there. The last run through was great, could hear the drums properly and everything was much tighter. So all being well we are now finally all set to tour.

Here is a cross post from http://matthewnorth.blogspot.com

Exeter Picturehouse Show 8th Oct 2009

Last night I performed a full length solo show at the Picturehouse in Exeter, I ended up being the headline act, for a long while now I’ve felt uncomfortable being the headliner, possible a lack of confidence thing harking back to the bands wilderness years of the late 90s, when things were not as good as they are now.

Anyhow, Niall was unable to perform at this show as it was his wedding anniversary so I did it on my own. I wasn’t sure what songs to pick, but as the Picturehouse is a chilled out venue so really I can get away with playing anything, and I thought id pop in a couple of my new songs that I did at the Watermans a couple moths ago.

So the set was

Fortunes Light
Each And Every Way
New Song without a title
Jessica
The Widow’s Blame
Friends Forever (Another new one working title)
Stranger To None
Encore: Home Too Soon

Was a great night, and made me very happy.