The night turned out to be the quietest night of the tour by far with fewer than 30 people in the place including the other bands and bar staff but all bands were excellent and it was nice to see some faces from home again.

The guys from The Wickets kindly offered us some floor space, showers and an internet connection that night which was greatly appreciated. I think they took pity on us as they were just back from Europe and knew exactly what it was we were in need of on the road.

Nottingham

We only had a short distance to travel the next day. It was our first time in Nottingham and with it being a Tuesday night, we weren't expecting much. After we had loaded in and sound checked, we met up with an old friend and neighbour of ours, Barry who treated the lot of us to pints of local Ale. It's a real comfort when you're in a strange city and familiar faces come and say hello. 

York

After a night's sleep and some bacon butties, we set off for York. We arrived in plenty of time to get a good walk around the place, and of course, Decky shared his version of the city's history with us. The venue we were booked into, Stereo, is a cracking wee spot in the centre of town and we were looking forward to getting back there. It was the owner (Andy)'s birthday and he treated everyone to free Jameson and this kicked off the night to a good start.

Lantern for a Gale were opening up and played a devastatingly heavy but extremely tight and entertaining set. This was then followed up by two absolutely awful crust-punk bands that almost killed me to sit through. But we finally got onstage, did our thing and it was nice to see that one or two people had remembered us from last time.

We've the night off tonight and aren't quite sure what we should do with ourselves. Anyway, with just less than a week to go, we're going to make the most of it!