Nick at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall and
High Wycombe City Hall,
Monday 14 and Wednesday 16 October 2002 -
by semi-official HHOH touring guru "Big" Chris Moxon


I haven't been hiding... I've just been sleeping a lot!

Briefly, Leeds was excellent, although Roy didn't think so. He said the audience were better than at Leicester, but he wasn't! The venue is an amazing place and Nick said that he was honoured to play on the same stage as such greats as Laurel & Hardy and Charlie Chaplin. The gig list was the same as at most of the gigs this tour, but the gig actually was 1/2 hour longer! The reason for this is that Roy went into some serious ramblings before most of the songs, but especially Hangman. Some of the crowd were not too keen on this, but chuff me - they weren't missing out on any songs... so they were getting more for their money!

High Wycombe... well, I would agree that the fact that you can't smoke inside the venue is a bit of a downer and yesterday the venue staff went back to their old ways and closed the bar during the performance which is a much bigger downer! Last time Roy played there with Andy Roberts, the bar was open all night and that gig was regarded by many (including Roy and Andy) as been the best on the tour. Last night's sound was just as good (thanks to Johnny F) and the content was very different compared to the rest of the tour.

Nick played Song Of Madness and Titties And Beer which I haven't heard this tour, and he was going to play Aeroplane. But I shouted for "The Vampire Song". Some tw*t in the audience shouted at me to shut up... luckily I don't know who that was! Nick enquired if I was attending any of the other two gigs on the tour, as he really wanted to play Aeroplane. I said I wasn't and 9 gigs this tour was probably enough... but by the time that conversation ended and all the voices "in his head" had finished, he didn't have enough time to play either! [you know you've seen too many gigs when you can alter song selections, right, Chris? ;) - P.]

Roy obviously likes playing in High Wycombe - one reason for this is probably the Hob Goblin pub which he popped into beforehand. He commented that, during his tour, most of the venues only serve crap beer like "Boddingtons, Guinness Extra Cold and Heineken" and here in High Wycombe they serve a cracking handpulled pint of... yep you guessed it... Hob Goblin! With a decent pint down him. he played his "usual" set but with two bonus tracks as well. He actually got rather pi**ed off when someone shouted at him during his pre-Hangman ramble - though I didn't catch what was shouted. Whatever it was, it made him pretty angry! So later on to cheer himself up, he attempted to sing Feeling All The Saturday, which was a treat for everyone. He also sang If which again was brilliant and something that I haven't heard in years.

Anyway, during the gig I convinced myself (helped by a few pints of Hob Goblin and the fact that Nick sort of agreed with me that he'd play "Vampire Song") that I have the opportunity of seeing Nick in four different countries in just over 6 months - Scotland, England, the Republic of Ireland and Wales (5 if you count Northern Ireland [of course you can! - P.]). So yep I'm making the trip to Cardiff on Saturday! I must be chuffing mad... well I know I'm pretty skint. ;) Now I'm off back to bed ... to catch up on my beauty sleep!



Created 27 May 2003
© CM/PLC 2003