Wednesday 6th October 1999

We discovered Travis. Well, more to the point, Anna did as she sent Sharon a tape with U16 girls on it long before anyone else had even heard of them. We were among the 4 people who actually bought Good Feeling when it came out. It was a staple do the housework album for Sharon for the longest time. We predicted that if they released an album of ballads they would rule the world...and what happened? They released an album of ballads and ruled the world. We're expecting the thankyou note from them anyday now. So when they went on tour and the Aberdeen gig was sold out how annoyed were we? Our little band and we don't get to see them?! Pah! Well, our mission is to gig and not to be thwarted by location we secured 2 tickets to see them in Dundee. Once again not having a clue where we were going to stay when we got there. Mere technicalities.

Fortunately, we have friends in the right places! So at a Bernard Butler gig the previous month when a good friend sought out Sharon at the front of the crowd and told her she had moved to Dundee the dilemma was over! Fiona very kindly offered to let us stay in her flat even though she didn't have a ticket for the gig herself!

So our heroes met up in Dundee, carrying ridiculously large rucksacks and make their way to the Caird Hall. First up - support band Remy Zero. Oh dear. Notice the first three letters in their name? Do we think they were influenced by REM? Oh yes. However, they had a saving grace by way of an actually very good guitarist, who bless him, obviously wanted nothing more in the world than to be in The Clash. Songs inspired by REM. Trousers by The Clash. And a web site was born. In between one of the records played is Rod Stewart's Maggie May. This is obviously a Dundee thing, as everyone joined in and the girls were left feeling terribly bemused. In fact the guy next to us seemed to think he was at a Rod Stewart gig which was VERY disconcerting.

Travis come on to 'On the street where you live', a song Caroline holds dear to her heart as she used to hoover the corridor of her nuclear bunker to that song. Fran was wearing identical trousers to Roddy Frame, the jeans with the turn ups, well before they became fashionable. Deciding they must be a uniform given out by the Independiente record label, the phrase 'Independiente trousers' was coined.

So the lads prove to be as endearing in real life as they are on record, and during Slide Show they actually show slides of themselvs when they were wee. Bless. As an encore they do 'Be My Baby' and Sharon and Caroline entertain the guys next to them by supplying backing vocals and the backing singer dance (difficult to describe over the internet, but you know the one, all backing singers in the 80s did it).  A gig true to the title of their first album, 'Good Feeling' and the final song 'Happy' proves to be very apt.

So it's back to Fiona's flat and she supplies us with the staple post-gig fare of tea and toast. The next day the girls headed into Dundee to spend money neither of them had and look like backpacking tourists with their ridiculously large rucksacks. Four days later they had another gig in another city, no rest for these girls!

A wee bit of merchandise from the gig