day 1    

So... On tour again, minus Stan, but plus another Lewis ('Smokie'). Having only 2 gigs under the belt as as an all new, exposed, rank, reclaimed, reformed meat 'The Heal', we set off for Nottingham to play at The Maze.





We enjoyed a nice easy journey down, giving ourselves about 6 hours to get from Staines to the Maze for sound check. (?!)

Arriving a neat 3 hours early in Nottingham, we once again had time to kill. We thought we'd make our way to the venue to check things out. Smokie, our latest com padre had generously and impressively jotted down the post code to The Maze. Astounded at the amazing oganisational skills we took for granted one minor detail.
Having taken a few circuits of the small town we were meant to be playing we pulled over to check the address.
Again, due to great organasational skills Smokie had the street name and number. Coincidently we had pulled over but metres from the location.
Unfortunately we arrived outside The Maze for 'parents of children on the autistic spectrum'! Unlucky Smokie.... the thought was there!




SHIT IT!!!!!!


Eventually, after laughing ourselves into a barrage of stomach pains, we headed off to find the real MAZE venue in the city centre.


It took us an hour to find somewhere to park our sizeable tour bus, but park it we did and off to the shops we went!
After a lack of inspiration from the city we head for the biggest thing in town, but she was a bitch so we visited Nottingham's answer to The London Eye from the comfort of a nice Weatherspoons pub just opposite... a home away from home!







After encountering some of Nottingham's weird residents (quite a few really) we made our way to the venue for 5 and began loading our stuff in... It was...erm... cozy....


MySpace





But here at The Heal we like our intimate gigs so this was just up our alley ;)

We were 3rd out of 4 bands and finally got onstage at about 10:15.

We rocked The Maze like this:

Kill The Bottle
Newbie
Drive
Hush
Wars
What If I Win

After loading all of our stuff back into the van we kicked back with Lewis and Elliott's Cousin Hannah and her friends, before making the 3 hour journey down to Swindon.



We settled into the van for the night with a cup of tea and a nice story to read.... yeah right! Instead we under estimated the coldness of the north
and froze.