I'm currently back in drizzly York and feeling a little deflated to be back in the real world. 

After leaving Doncaster on a high, the intrepid flamesters trekked to sunny Scunny to play the Lincoln Imp, the place was pretty quiet and a tad earthy, but we set up and got the beers in. The turnout wasn't great, Leeds Fest apparently being the cause, but Mid Sentence had a brave stab at waking up the small crowd. We went on next and played a pretty good set, getting Feel Free in tune this time was nice! Then the Theo boys got up to do what they do best for the penultimate time. They didn't disappoint. With his usual level of tact Mikey called the staunchly seated emo kids at the side 'proper boring bastards' and then sat proceeded to sit down cross legged, along with half the crowd, for the next song. By the end of their set though, people were finally moving, and all wasn't lost.

We then headed back to base camp in Donny (ta mam) to get some brief rest.

Up early for some van repair, we fuelled up at KFC and set off on a pretty drive across the Pennines. Three hours later we pulled up in Oswestry and as soon as we entered the Fox Inn and heard Fear Factory blasting out of the PA we knew we were onto a winner. It's a killer little old venue, with a stage out back and a good hundred people crammed in, with no scene kids to be seen (well, except Ben Wright...) The bands playing before us varied from funk to thrash and were all doing pretty well. The atmosphere was really friendly, there were fire breathers and circus acts between bands and, most importantly, beer was free for bands. Get in.

After Apollyon, we were up. There was no power for transmitters and no room to dive about, but we played probably our best show of the tour. The crowd started coming forward and the evening began to take off. Gig done, we got our teeth into the free beers and enjoyed a bunch of bands.

Then it was Waking Theo's turn. It was a pretty emotional thing to see their farewell show in a place where they have such great support. They tore into the songs with their usual chaotic aplomb, with Ben Falling over early on and Mikey scaling the side of the stage, sending mic stands crashing here and there. It was awesome, a wall of death was instigated and a melee ensued when a free t-shirt was thrown into the crowd. Fire-breather Moose thought he had it until Mikey enouraged people to mosh for it. A standing ovation and chants of 'THEO! THEO!' saw the boys leave the stage for the last time, leaving Primal State to close the night. Waking Theo: Legends.

DIF and Theo then headed to the bar (in deepest Shropshire bear in mind) for shots of Jack and raucous chants of 'YORKSHIRE! YORKSHIRE!' Shortly after, everyone was covered in Sharpie tattoos (my knuckles still say 'slow time'?!) and a bottle of Jaeger was opened and finished in ten minutes. Mikey got creamed and we all piled back to Primal State Rosie and Jay's house where we drank and discussed the finer points of docking...again. Bad jokes were bandied around (Ben's extractor fan joke was excruciating) and an impromptu outbreak of Stomach Stomp percussion resulted in the neighbours pounding on the walls. It was 6am by this point.

A few hours later we were up for the drive home, and a return to work and reality. Thanks go out to every single person who came to a show, did sound, bought a shirt, let us stay on their floor, and so on, and so on...

I must say it's been one of the best weeks of my life, full of highs, lows and laughter with some good friends and some damn good music. This is what it's all about. Waking Theo will be sorely missed, who else will be as much fun on the road??

We're booking the next tour already.

See you somewhere,

Arran and Drowned In Flames x