Our mid-tour break is nearly over and we're all rested and ready for another run of shows starting in Middlesbrough at the Empire on Tuesday (which has a slightly scary looking Doctors and Nurses themed club on after!). We've said goodbye to the Xcerts and have three new bands joining us; The Olympic Swimmers, Sparrow and the Workshop and Make Love all from Glasgow or thereabouts. Tomorrow we'll be playing live on Vic Galloway's evening show which starts at 8pm on BBC Scotland. For those of you not in Scotland I think you can hear it online or on digital radio. Gareth

So we're a few days into the Idlewild 'Post Electric Blues' tour. In Exeter today, and it's sunny which is good. It didn't start so well though. We all met up in Edinburgh on Thursday night for the overnight drive on the tourbus to Manchester. After a few drinks everyone went to bed, expecting to wake up outside the Academy venue, but instead after a lot of thumping, banging, stopping and starting we woke up in the morning in an industrial estate outside Carlisle. The bus had broken down, and mechanics were pulling the engine apart. Under assurance that it could easily be fixed we sat and waited. At three O'clock with the a jump start from a fork-lift truck (in itself quite a sight) we were moving despite the engine sounding like a broken hairdryer. It didn't last long and we were on the hard shoulder of the M6 within an hour. This time we couldn't leave the bus because the power had gone and the doors wouldn't open. Not like you'd want to get out anyway and risk being squashed by a speeding truck. By this point the way things were going we had no hope for making the gig. Also, the only food we had was a small tub of Marks & Spencers rocky road bites. Not a lot of sustenance for seven people. After an hour the police arrived and let us get off the bus. We were now standing at the side of the motorway in a darkening evening, which was only marginally better. Help finally came from the Xcerts (the Aberdeen band opening for us) whose tour manager Neil drove the hour up from Manchester to meet us in their van. We made it without any gear or luggage to the venue at nine o clock. It had taken us twenty hours to get here from Edinburgh. We went onstage late and played with the Xcerts gear. I have no idea how it went. It was loud and so were the crowd. Afterward a replacement bus was sent, except its not really big enough - there aren't enough seats for us all to sit down. We have our own equipment back, but are still waiting to see our bus. Aside from all this spirits are good and last night in Nottingham was fun. I took a walk around the city in the afternoon. It's the most amount of sick I've ever seen on city streets. A local blamed it on Freshers week. come to think of it, the first thing I saw when I woke up was a pigeon eating sick. Roddy

Younger Than America Readers & Writers Paint Nothing Everyone Says You're So Fragile No Emotion Make Another World Dreams of Nothing You Held the World in Your Arms City Hall Roseability Let Me Sleep (Next to the Mirror) Idea Track Quiet Crown Live in a Hiding Place Post Electric El Capitan Blame It On The Obvious Ways American English A Modern Way of Letting Go Take Me Back In Time ------------------- In Competition for the Worst Time Little Discourage Captain In Remote Part