Brighton - Gaz Whelan
Thursday 17th May 2007

Let me start by saying Yes we have fish and chips and they are ....well shite! But this is the first time I had had time off in Brighton to have a good look around. I think Brighton is great, I really like it a lot and that's saying something coming from a miserable bastard like myself. Though I'm sure I saw a vegetarian shoe shop???

The venue is at the very end of the pier (I was always worried that one day we would end up an end of pier freak show). The venue itself is like a chain fun pub but to be fair they had fitted a stage and kitted it out pretty well. The dressing rooms are the karaoke bar next door sporting a completely different theme similar to the club in Scarface (a reacurring theme....see L.A. tour bus).

The gig goes well, it is being filmed by channel 4 and Bez punched one of the cameramen earlier as he thought he was being set up. He later makes up with Stuart (I think that's what the cameraman was called) who seems to take it all on the chin, so to speak and they are later seen hitting the town together.

After the gig most of the band go to the MTV2 party but I head back to the hotel with the crew for a salutation or two. The hotel night porter is extremely efficient, the type usually only to be found in American hotels. He is a very strange looking individual in his late 50's with greasy, varnished black hair glued to his cranium. He is skinny and looks like he hasn't seen daylight for several full moons. He looks like a cross between a 1920's silent film Dracula and a long lost bitter and twisted 2nd cousin of Keith Richards who still lives at home with his elderly mother.....probably my hotel room maid?

He floats about silently serving us drinks and making food to order all whilst listening to his I POD that he has juiced into the reception p.a. system. He has it playing at a volume just enough to un-nerve us and not quite loud enough to enjoy. A personal mix he has compiled probably under the title 'songs for the sinister', an odd compilation of Wagner, Marilyn Mansun , The Carpenters, themes from The Deer Hunter, Lenny Cohen, Beach Boys, The band, The Fall, Mozart and Eminem.....bizarre!

After a while and quite a few drinks later we all begin to exchange nervous glances as paranoia becomes the caretaker of our minds. No matter how tired we are no-one will head to bed until (A) the porter is busy in the bar pouring drinks or (B) we are accompanied by a colleague. We all retired together en-masse at around 5.a.m

I double lock my door but the stench of piss and biscuits left by the antiquated maid has impregnated the whole room and has left it smelling like a post office queue on pension day. Well back home to the depressed north tomorrow.