DAY ONE : SATURDAY 11TH
NOVEMBER 2000
We've got a morning ferry to catch from Dublin today, which means leaving Belfast at the ungodly hour of 6am. Due to the fact I'm normally just nodding off around this time, I've decided to stay up all night. This is probably a very stupid thing to do, but I've grown accustomed to doing stupid things. Worryingly, I already feel like shit - due in part to getting in some "drinking practise" on Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm the last to be picked up by the trusty stinking "white" transit van, joining Nicky, Nick, James and Dougie the Gimp - our soundman/driver, and most offensive man on the planet. He's kindly installed a park bench in the back of the van to make our journey more tolerable. I immediately return to the house to get my own chair.
Hit the Dublin - Holyhead ferry at 11.15am, and the sight of drummer James"Jimmy Ribshite"Nicholl demolishing his first pint before midday puts the fear into me. I know the man's form. At some stage I grab the only 15 minutes of kip I'm going to get. Adrenaline will just have to do the rest. We drive from Holyhead to Liverpool (My first ever time in Wales - isn't Rock'n'Roll wonderful!) - an annoyingly long trek, sustained by tales of high times ahead.
There's no gig tonight - just a stopover in Liverpool on the floor of our mate Michael, a trainee producer at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. He gets us busy straight away - roping Nicky in to lay down a bass line on some new project (A member of PAY*OLA guesting - who'd have thought it). Myself and Dougie also get interviewed for a documentary Mike and his mates are making on changes in Northern Ireland. My rambling rant proves that if ever the rock dries up, I could always become a politician. I'm that much of an arsehole. The beers are now flowing, and having been here many times, we're ready for an evening of getting fucked up Liverpool style - i.e. cheap. At every bar we visit tonight, there is some drink going for a quid. We end up in the Flute and Firkin, me dancing like a ballbag and making a "special friend" in the process. A student party is then visited - a good one too - and at 4am I use my tiny supplies of self discipline to drag me, Nick and Nicky back to Mikes floor for a few hours sleep. The other two have long since faded - locking us out, and we spend at least half an hour waking them up with a combination of window stoning and mobile-phoning. What a pair of wankers.
The End….so far….
Unfortunately at this point in the writing of the tour diary Phil was arrested by the cats protection league and we never saw him again. That’s why the diary is not finished.
Nicky, James and Nick promise that there will be more to this tour diary whenever Phil gets out of prison. (According to Phil - Nicky, James and Nick are not allowed to write anything for the tour diary due to their lack of humour, imagination and worst of all – bad spellin and grammer)
Rock'n'Roll!