Croydon to Southampton

I got up about 11am on Saturday morning and set off at just after half twelve for Croydon. Hot Water Music were supposed to be doing a set of seven new songs at Shake Some Action that afternoon. Chris had mentioned the night before that he wanted to go to Stonehenge though and I think Chuck was thinking of going to see Chelsea play or something like that! Still, Chris said they were still going to do the show in the afternoon. It took absolutely fucking ages to get to West Croydon on the bus. There were queues everywhere especially at this one junction just outside Croydon where the police were directing and the lights changed three times without anybody moving. Still, I made it there for bang on 2pm and went into the shop only to be greeted by James with "Have you heard the bad news? It's not happening". Fucking great. The news didn't surprise me very much to be honest but it was incredibly annoying because I'd intended to meet up with Lloyd there to get to Southampton. He and Nick obviously knew because they weren't at the shop so I was a bit pissed off that no-one had bothered to let me know. Serves me right for running straight off after the gig the previous night I suppose. Anyway, I was at a bit of a loss at this point as to what to do. I went down to the Gun Tavern but there was no-one in there I knew and I also tried calling Nick from a phonebox and had no success there either. In the end I decided to go straight to Southampton where Hot Water Music were playing that night. I got a train from East Croydon to London Victoria, sat down, opened a beer and managed to spray the bloke sitting opposite me with it. Oops! He didn't seem to care though and even tried to make small talk by making supposedly witty remarks to me. Oh dear. Got some more beers in when I'd got to Waterloo and then settled in my seat for the 90 minute trip to Southampton. Nothing too eventful happened there except that I was feeling slightly pissed by the time I got off the train :-) I located on a map vaguely where the venue was and set off walking in that general direction. After a few minutes I came across the Rat and Parrot pub. I'd been in there before on a previous visit to Southampton so I decided to go in there for a pint. I ended up staying in there til half past six and had a meal as well! I eventually found the venue, the glamorous Solent Sports and Health Club after making a couple of wrong turns and who's outside but Lloyd and Steve. Chris is also outside and a grin crosses his face when he sees me. From there we walk down to the pub and meet up with everyone else. Lloyd and Steve were on the 3.30 train from London which was annoying because I'd been on the 3.15 and only just caught it. Anyway, no matter. We'd all found each other in the end. In the pub there was this old barman who kept telling us how good it was to see us in there and kept putting one hand on my shoulder and one on Steve's and squeezing them. Scary bloke!

Later on we wandered back up the road via the chip shop where they serve the largest portions of chips un history! Lloyd managed to finish his though :-) Chuck was outside when we got back and gave me a hug hello.

The venue that night was a bit dodgy really. They'd had to shift all the tables, chairs and TVs out of the way for the gig and the owner was being a bit of a dick telling them to get their feet off the furniture! All they had in the bar as well was cans of Heineken for 1.50 each so Lloyd and I went down the road to the off-licence and got some cans there. Oh yeah, and there was no stage either. The bands basically had to set up and play in the corner. There were mirrors all the way around that side though so it looked pretty cool.

The first band on that night were called Trophy Girls and I think they were local. Unfortunately, as we were all standing outside I couldn't tell you if they really were "trophy girls" or whether they were even female at all! Second band on though were Rydell who I'd last seen play at the Goldsmith's Tavern in New Cross. They were really good there so I was looking forward to tonight. They didn't disappoint much either - good solid emo-rock (I don't care about using that word when everyone knows what I mean when I use it! :-) They got a few people in the crowd dancing as well which is no bad thing. I did think they dragged on a bit though and eventually I went back outside again. By the time we came back in to see Hot Water Music's set there was no way to get a spot in front of the mics so I settled for being round the side, behind Chuck, Jason and Chris but about on a level with where George was. The band had a low opinion of the place really so I didn't know what to expect from this set. Well, it was fucking amazing. I didn't know at first whether it would be because the singing from the crowd on "Better Sense" wasn't very loud. But my fears were unfounded. As the gig went on I just got more and more into it and was just dancing crazily with myself. Once again I was tired as hell by the end. This is where I started thinking "that can't be the last show I'll see" and when I said goodbye to Chris I asked him where they were playing next Saturday. He said they were doing 7 dates in Germany and 1 in Czech. A plan was forming in my mind. Bearhugs were exchanged and we were off again. All I could think was "I'm gonna miss that motherfucker" and I knew something had to be sorted out. The walk back to the station was a pain in the arse because it was absolutely chucking it down for half of it and the train journey was just loooooooooong. I amused myself by singing for most of the way home. Mates' arse out of the window antics also made me laugh but unfortunately it upset Kerry. Eventually, at about half three in the morning I crawled into bed and went to sleep. And I needed it too!