Radiohead in 100 (+) gigs

July arrives and a couple of extra dates have been added to the Italian tour.

On the 6th, I fly to Bergamo, the little regional airport served by budget airlines handily located for the first gig of this leg of the tour.

Bergamo’s old town is a beautiful historic hill settlement once ruled by the Venetians, it has a cathedral, pretty square, winding streets and gorgeous Italians on scooters round seemingly every corner. The newer part of town, which I only see the outskirts of, seems to be full of Russians, which leads to some confusion when I ask for directions. There is a youth hostel pretty close to the venue and I meet Clarabelle and some of the other regulars when I get there. We’d had an offer to stay with a boardie in Milan, but in the end we needed to be nearer the venue and not reliant on begging for lifts.

The venue, Il Lazzaretto, is a walled outdoor space between the hostel and the old town. Clara and I spend time in the old town sightseeing and eating ice cream in the summer heat. I have never been to Italy before and this place is what I imagined it would be like, sleepy shuttered houses and a steep climb to discover hidden treasures. There’s even a funicular up the hill. This trip already feels more like a holiday than these jaunts usually do.

When we check out the venue there is some unease in the queue. We don’t get the details until later, but something is amiss. There are rumours about some kind of security breach. We later piece together some details – someone on the AtEase message board had posted a bomb threat, so the authorities were searching and securing the venue. Lack of information, more than anything else, puts people on edge, the usual early arrivals are here sheltering from the sun with umbrellas and makeshift shades rigged up over the queue barriers and to be honest I’m only really getting my normal reading of stress from them. I missed Thom rehearsing Neil Young’s Down By The River on piano during the sound check. I will not queue on this tour, I’m on my summer holidays and the weather is glorious, there is food to be eaten and art to be admired. We spend the larger part of the day in the old town soaking it up. Back later and the venue is filling up like nothing has happened, everything seems to be back to normal.

Low are the support band on this tour, I remember the band mentioning their Things We Lost In The Fire album as a favourite. Much as I like their records, as a live act they are a little subdued for the levels of anticipation generated by a Radiohead crowd, particularly one largely made up of Italian fans (who are exuberant and rather vocal bunch, especially when they spot Colin watching from the side of the stage). Low play a delicate set as the sun goes down.

I was deep in the crowd somewhere, it was hot and sweaty even as the evening cooled and I had no great desire to be in the crush.  Radiohead’s stage set is minimal with the vertical strip lights at the back the only physical element, the lighting design is the main thing, mostly bathing the band in blues, pinks and purples. They start with There There, Jonny and Ed’s drums already on the stage. Thom has a jacket on for the first songs but is soon down to his white short shirt sleeves.

It’s a heavily HTTT-weighted setlist, but Talk Show Host makes a slinky appearance fairly early on. Punch Up At A Wedding has found its groove and when Thom gets to the “Hypocrite” line he swaps in “Berlusconi” for “opportunist” to cheers from the Italian crowd. Thom fights off the mosquitoes and barely says a word of introduction until the encore. The Italians make up for any language barriers by shouting general noises of encouragement and when they can’t sing along they loudly hum the guitar lines, much to the bemusement of the travelling contingent. I sink into the noise and the lights, trying to get the immersion I need, trying to dance, trying not to faint in the heat.

At the end, the crowd are quickly herded out of the enclosure. There will be no party for us tonight, backstage is locked down.

Back at the hostel someone has a bottle of Cinzano found cheap in the local supermarket and we brave the sauna-like conditions of the hostel to stay up late not yet ready to struggle to get a couple of sticky hours sleep.

In the morning, as we’re all gathering to move on to Florence, I finally meet Gabi, a fan from Argentina who saves up to travel to see the band in Europe. She’s one of the few others who has been a fan as long as I have, but we don’t talk much yet, still unsure of each other.

Onwards to Florence…

Overwhelmed by actually being in actual Florence, I’m glad of the little studio apartment that I found on the internet. We are conveniently located at the bottom of a large flight of steps, with the venue Piazza Michelangelo (basically a car park with a giant replica of the famous David statue and a fantastic view of the city) at the top.

From here, Clarabelle and I have a base to explore Florence. As an art history graduate, for me this place is basically the mother-load, the cradle of the Renaissance and I want to visit as much of it as I can. We cram in the Uffizi, several art-stuffed cathedrals, more ice cream, more churches, exhibitions and a city bus tour where the 35 degree heat makes it almost impossible to sit down on the scorching seats… the gigs almost feel like an afterthought, ALMOST.

In the Piazza Michelangelo we watch the sun set over the Duomo to the strains of Low, looking down over the orange roofs of Florence I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. It’s just about dark by the time Radiohead come on but it still feels like a ridiculously picturesque setting for a gig. (Apparently the band wanted the stage to face the city, but weren’t allowed.)

We paid a visit to the queue but I have no desire to hang around in the heat, even if it means I miss the chance to hear the band sound checking.

We went for cocktails at a nearby terrace bar and met Sam, last seen filming in Portugal.

The atmosphere, looking down on the city, watching it get dark, is what I remember. The gigs happened and I was at them but beyond that I don’t have much. Reports confirm that the band were more relaxed the second night.

Afterwards, I am in a funk, apparently one of the American fans was trying to find me to tell me that there was a party, but I was already outside and couldn’t get back inside the compound. We have an extra day here to pack in more tourism and then a short journey to Ferrara, a place that, where if not for the gig, I would probably never visit. I have no idea what to expect.

Going on tour has become an increasingly social activity, meeting up with people from the Message Board, travelling and sharing accommodation with them. Running into the regulars before the show is par for the course. The whole Italian trip had been a holiday that just happened to have five Radiohead gigs for us to plan our time around. The usual pressures didn’t seem so important, I hadn’t had any after show passes up to this point, it had been harder to make contact with the band as the shows were all large scale outdoor events.

We took the train to Ferrara, where we were booked into the large youth hostel, along with most of the other people following this tour.

Ferrara was a pleasant surprise; a sandy coloured Renaissance city with a castle dominating the centre, the adjacent square cordoned off for the shows. It felt like the band had commandeered the whole place.

Unlike Florence, Ferrara lacked the cultural pressure to cram things in, less touristy, with wide streets and beautiful buildings to stumble upon. We dodged into air conditioned shops when the heat got too much.

The queue, under umbrellas and hastily jerry rigged shade with the regulars sitting on broken down cardboard boxes in orderly lines between the metal crowd-control barriers. We pay them a visit when we buy our lunch of cheese and tomatoes from the nearby supermarket. I bring bottled water to a few people and offer to share food, but most of them are limiting their intake in the usual organised fashion.

I don’t really remember much apart from the heat. I got used to getting changed out of my sandals for shows but I think for this one I kept them on, risking having people stand on my toes. I’m not built for weather like this, I live in Scotland for goodness sake, and after a week I’m still not really acclimatised.

I can’t do my usual dancing for very long, it’s too dehydrating. My view is obstructed and the Italians seem more than usually keen to do their “vocalised guitar parts” trick.

The set is mostly Hail To The Thief songs. Thom has sweat bands on his wrists and Phil still has his suit jacket on. They seem in good spirits. There is a rocked out version of Talk Show Host fairly early on, usually a good sign. By now it’s dark, but the castle surrounded by a moat over-shadows the square, the dry ice from the stage and the steam rising from the crowd creating a strange coloured cloud.

Upon entering, I’d had been given a pair of after show passes, but when Clara and I approach the security at the exit at the end of the show, we are turned away. There is no party. After leaving too soon in Florence, I’m a bit disappointed. I’ve not seen anyone to talk to the whole tour, it would be nice to say hello.

We have to walk all the way round the cordon to get out, as the stage blocks off one side of the square. On the other side of the fence I spot Big Colin and shout something cutting to him about being a party-pooper. He just says they changed their minds and there will be no afters tonight.

I follow the rest of the gang back to the hostel, where I try to cool off and end up talking to a girl who is here because a friend she was travelling with is a neighbour of Radiohead’s Manager Chris Hufford and she has been given tickets. We stay up late talking and finish the last of a warm bottle of Martini Rosso.

Next day, Kim is coming over from London, a last minute budget airline trip to make use of one of my spare tickets. We have a leisurely day eating, drinking and dodging in and out of air conditioned shops while exploring the streets, never venturing too far from the venue in case we miss something.

On a wide street in the middle of the afternoon, Clara spots the unlikely looking trio of Thom, Hilda and Big Colin walking down the street. They’re across the road from where we are. As this may be my only chance for an audience, I dash out narrowly avoiding knocking a cyclist off his bike. Attempting to regaining my casual summer holiday demeanour I say hello, then ask Thom what happened to the party last night. “Don’t worry,” he says, “We’ll have one for you tonight.”

They go on their way and we go on ours, I’m reassured now that my last night of the tour will be memorable.

The show is much like last night’s. Thom has on a sleeveless top – not his usual shirt – the heat is getting to him. I don’t have much left of this gig, my memory gets erased later on and I couldn’t see very well. They finished with Sit Down Stand Up followed by Karma Police which drains the last of my energy and leaves me dehydrated.

The aftershow is in a cordoned off restaurant which is behind the stage on the edge of the square. The band have taken over the whole place for the duration, and it’s being used for catering for everyone. It’s still warm, even now it has got dark, we sit outside around the tables. Hilda presides over bottles of Champagne, pouring a plastic cupful each for Clara and I. Sian, the girl we met last night, who is a little more goth than most Rh fans, is here and swaps indie war stories with Clara. Low’s keyboard player is sitting next to us eating gelato, she’s the last of their rather subdued entourage to be out this late.

There aren’t many people here, maybe this really is a party for my last night with the tour. Thom comes in and helps himself to a drink. I go over and say hello. He asks me if I’ve seen whatshername, a notorious fan who I’ve been warned about before. I try not to listen to people’s gossip and not to judge people until I’ve met them, but her reputation  – moving to Oxford, basically to camp out in his garden – goes before her. He makes a face and tells me that she’s here – perhaps this is why last night’s party was cancelled – he assumes I know of her exploits and doesn’t go into it.  I later piece together who he’s talking about and realise I’ve stood next to her at a show before.  I’m still complaining about the heat, as he asks me if his stage attire – the vest – looked perhaps a bit gay… he shows me that the sweatbands are covering a nobly ganglion on his wrist and I get a health run down.

I go back to the table and Hilda helps us to more bubbly. I’m in the middle of explaining that I missed watching the band at Glastonbury on TV because it clashed with one of my first stand up comedy performances. I took a workshop class in night school, having been dared by a friend to give it a try. For the last couple of months I’d been doing five minute sets to tiny audiences in pub basements. It was completely nerve wracking but I felt like, compared to some of my classmates, I was doing alright. I reach the point in my story where I describe my fellow comics – “It was like a Prozac support group…” when Thom joins us to sit down.
“What? You’re not on Prozac are you?!” he looks concerned.  I try to explain, but he’s already into a rant about “Big Pharma” and his feelings about antidepressants… Clara dives in with her opinions on the subject and the conversation has spiralled away from me towards the dangers of Seroxat. Thom has picked up C’s plastic cup of Champagne to drink from and her subsequent admonishment pulls his attention back on course. I describe my experience on stage, how terrifying it was seeing the small crowd in front of me.

“Stand up?” says Thom, picking up the thread of the conversation, “Well you always did have good timing!”

I realise I’m comparing stage technique, talking about seeing the whites of an audiences eyes, with Thom Yorke and want to laugh hysterically. He says, “It’s only a microphone!” and even if you can see the audience, they go all blurred from that far away, that’s the best bit…” (My notes stowed away in a little book I must have had on me are increasingly incoherent.) I bolt the rest of my drink and assure him again that I’m not on Prozac.
I ask him what the word is on the lighting rig readout. Turns out it says “FOREVER” “The most used word in both mine and Stanley’s sketchbooks.”

Hilda opens more Champagne, we’re onto the Veuve Cliquot – “More?” says Thom, “Do you know how much that stuff costs?!” She laughs and opens another bottle and it is possibly the most (least?) rock ‘n’ roll thing I’ve ever experienced at a Radiohead aftershow to date.

The time comes for the band to leave. Hilda is gathering up gifts left for the band and finds a large yellow floral oilcloth picnic tablecloth in her hands. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with it and gives it to me (My handbag is made from similar material).
Hilda writes her email address in my notebook so I can get in touch about the next lot of UK dates. I mention that Keiko wants to take Thom shopping in Tokyo next year.
After so much Champagne we have to find out way out. We still have our large cups in hand and top them up before leaving. Everything seems hilarious. I gather up my table cloth and a couple of the Champagne corks and we spill out the back door.

 

Before the show, the others made a vague plan to meet up in a little park they’d found a few streets from the venue. Zara, known for her cocktail making skills, instigated a party – we just have to find it.

We’re drunk. So very drunk. I realise I’ve not been to the toilet for some time and with no other options available, I nip behind a skip in a side street, the pride of the British abroad. We take turns holding the drinks and the precious picnic blanket, then eventually find our way to where the others are enjoying the warm night and making quite the party of it on a grassy bank. Like us, they are all locked out of the hostel.

We join them and sit down on our now suddenly useful picnic blanket. Zara has made cocktails with Amaretto. I try to decline but a cup is put in my hands. When I sat down I became aware of just how much Veuve Cliquot is in my system. I sip the Amaretto concoction and try to concentrate on what everyone is saying, stop the world from spinning. I lay back and felt the grass and the oilcloth, stared at the sky, took in how wonderful it was to be here on a warm night with all these people having a good time. To have talked about stage fright with my hero. To have drunk Champagne in the Italian night. To have been given a gift that had been given to the band.

I took it all in.

I took it all in and then I threw up.

I threw up on the picnic blanket.

 

Over the summer Hail To The Thief is released in the UK accompanied by a hail of promo. Radiohead are everywhere. I go to an Edinburgh Film festival screening of some of the “Radiohead TV” videos, at the big Odeon cinema with Melody. EMI’s share price is in the news. The band tour the USA, play Summersonic Festival in Japan. The juggernaut rumbles on.

When the winter UK arena dates go on sale, I spend over £100 on 4 tickets for Glasgow SECC and leave the rest to fate.

In October, in an idle moment, I enter a music quiz competition in The List (a Scottish events magazine) and to my surprise win two tickets, first class rail travel and a night in a B&B for the Aberdeen show. Because I have the time off work, a little money and the RHMB gang will provide shared rooms, it feels like a good idea to go on tour again.

I email Hilda and Thom and ask nicely to be put on the guest list as they’ve both let me know that it’s OK to ask. They both reply that I’m down for plus ones for the shows I want (from Manchester onwards, not Dublin, not Cardiff – I have beds and a plus one everywhere else). Hilda is very straightforward, she trusts me and she knows how important it is to me to be there. For big gigs like these, where communicating from outside with anyone backstage is always a struggle, it’s a great relief to know things are sorted. It’s also cool that Thom still gets his email.

Interviews with the band prior to the tour all seem to be about how mammoth the US leg of the tour has been and how they want these shows to be fun. This will be the last batch of live dates for a while, various babies are due and the chaps seem to be falling over each other to note how much they’re enjoying themselves. There’s a lot of chat about avoiding long tours and packed promo schedules while being in the middle of exactly that. The sales of HTTT don’t match that of OKC. It is becoming apparent that massive changes are afoot in the way the music industry works. Records get leaked on the internet, people aren’t paying for music like they used to.

In a pre-tour interview in Time Out, Thom is asked if ten years in, he’s still excited by touring. The front page carries the paraphrased “performing still gives me the horn” quote. Having “the touring horn” becomes the catchphrase for our tour.

November 22, Manchester, MEN Arena.

I am wearing my Scottish CND T-shirt. I’d tracked down a Yorkshire CND No Star Wars T-shirt (like Thom’s) for Yasuko. In solidarity, I sent in my subs to the local branch and got a shirt in time for the tour.

Kim has booked a room in the Mitre Hotel Inn B&B at the Cathedral next to the venue. We’re trying to be a bit more “5 star” on this tour. She says we’re past roughing it. She’s wearing her Vivian Westwood coat and regaling me with punk stories. I go looking for Picadilly Records with Pocki to fill in the day.

Back at the arena, there are a lot of the regulars queuing around the outside of the building, I speak to a few of the people I know from the RHMB, the At Ease crew are here too, but they make me jumpy. Keiko and I are on the list (and I shouldn’t worry about this but I always do until I have ticket in my hand and I’m inside the venue.)

We have seated tickets from the guestlist. Being in Manchester again is always a little weird. The MEN is huge and uninviting. The stage feels a long way away, even though we have good seats. The support for this leg are Asian Dub Foundation. Ed contributes guitar to a couple of tracks on their new LP. He lurks at the side of the stage and plays guitar on one song. I’ve seen them before in smaller spaces and they’re not an obvious choice for this job. The warm up music is still the Trojan Rocksteady Box Set.

I have new boots on and not enough room to dance.

All the gigs are going to be this big. I’ve spoiled myself for venues. There are some people sitting near us smoking joints and I feel queasy. Pocki, Wooly and Will were a few seats behind in the W.A.S.T.E. seats.

I have a sticky pass and there is a little room for us to be herded into afterwards.  I run into Thom coming out of the bar as I’m coming back from the toilet. I thank him for the tickets and try to articulate how I feel about big shows without sounding ungrateful. I’m never well enough prepared for what to say and always wish my life was more interesting so I had more to talk about, and then afterwards I remember all the things I wanted to say. He was in a bit of a mood, I shouldn’t let it affect how I experience the show but I do. He can’t see the audience, he was playing like he was behind glass – in stadium mode. The bar was throng, he shouldn’t have gone in

 

A train to Newcastle, where it is even colder than Manchester. Really bitterly cold, windy and wet. Travelling light, I don’t have all the usual winter paraphernalia I would have in Scotland. Yasuko has a room for us in the nearest budget hotel to the arena, if I had any sense I’d go to back to bed but I attempt to explore a bit of Newcastle until the rain puts me off. I just need to go off on my own for a while. Already the group mentality is making me tense. I have what Clara calls “tour Tourettes.” I’m swearing even fucking more than usual.

The Japanese contingent are already down at the venue, braving the cold, but I know that my ticket will be a seat again, so there is no need to queue.

Hilda has put my tickets in a small envelope with a note on fluorescent pink paper: “Just to say that there’s no aftershow tonight, so we’ll see you tomorrow!” I end up with a spare ticket – everyone has bought theirs in advance, anyone who might know someone who wants it is already inside the venue. I hate to waste a ticket when they’re so hard to get but these people don’t leave it to chance.

I have another seat that I don’t want to sit in. I’m on my own, I can feel a cold coming on. I want to be happy and these shows don’t make me happy. Spoilt brat.
I wrote the set list in my notebook with notes on Thom’s inter-song chat: Gloaming, 2+2, Morning Bell, Where I End…, Stand Up Sit Down, Kid A, I Will, Myxomatosis (“Bush and Blair, shut up- just don’t say anything.”), I Might Be Wrong, Paranoid Android (“What the fuck is wrong with you lot – do you not get out much or something?”), Sail To The Moon, Talk Show Host, Punch Up, Just (I scream loud here), Idioteque, No Surprises, There There. Encore: You And Whose Army (nose cam), National Anthem, Wolf At The Door, Karma Police (with the a capella bit), We Suck Young Blood (hand claps led by Ed and sustained by Coz), The Bends, Everything In Its Right Place… FOREVER the tickertape read out across the top of the stage in LED lights. At the end it changes colour and speeds up.

Sartorial notes: Ed – Red T-shirt with obscured writing; Jon – Yellow T-shirt; Thom – No Star Wars and another jerkin; Phil – White suit; Coz – black. Ed was definitely playing with ADF on The Enemy Of The Enemy and possibly on Naxalite, which is their best song.
Back in the Jury’s Inn, I get woken up. Yasuko has crunchy plastic bags in her luggage and I realise I’m a terribly light sleeper. I don’t think she went to bed at all. They leave at 5am to fly to Bristol. I couldn’t have survived another one without sleep. Newcastle is so cold. Clara has gone to Norwich as her friend has a baby due.

I retreat back to Glasgow for a couple of days rather than schlep to Cardiff. Back to Limbo before flying down to London.

 

Yasuko has found a cheap B&B near Earls Court and we all load in.

There are more boardies here than in Newcastle, I catch up with a few people and try to avoid the one or two who give me weird vibes.

The guest tickets are for block 18, nearest the stage and tantalisingly close to the standing pit. There are sticky passes. I have called in Rebecca, now living in London, at short notice to use my spare.

Keiko and Yasuko have passes too but, as usual, have also bought standing tickets enabling them to get the best of both worlds. I am reminded, in the seats, that the thing I get from this isn’t just about being here, it’s about being able to immerse myself, to let go and be in the gig. So much of that is the struggle of being in the throng that the experience is diminished by being safely installed up here. I am self-conscious and ridiculous (and doubtless annoying as hell to those around me) trying to physically engage with the music while trapped in a tip up seat. Radiohead shows are not for watching, they’re for taking part in. So I shake the whole row, I stamp my feet, I sing along, I scream and holler.

There is an aftershow in one of the corporate suites. By the time I’ve found Keiko, Caffy and a beer, I missed Thom and we don’t see him or the rest until near the end. Keiko takes her chance for a hug and we realise that he’s talking to Polly Harvey. Because we’ve interrupted them (we hung back until Keiko could stand it no more) PJ gives me a hard stare. The fact of being “just a fan” slaps me hard in the face. We’re welcome until we’re not. We’re not all that important. I’m getting paranoid and these record company dos are not the place for it.

Broken sleep in the cheap hotel. There isn’t much to do in Earls Court. It feels like I should conserve my energy.

Tonight’s seat is in block 2 on the opposite side, still close to the stage. We seem to have more room. I have called in Meg, a friend from University now resident in London, to use the spare. She notes that Miranda Richardson, Queenie herself, is sitting behind us. Half way through the show we realise that we’re surrounded by heavily pregnant women who keep getting up, presumably to use the bathroom. It doesn’t occur to me until later that they are band member’s girlfriends (both Colin and Ed’s partners are due to drop sprogs in the coming weeks).

Tonight’s afters are accessed by wearing a “Worm Buffet” plastic wrist band. We are herded into a waiting area with a woman who turns out to be video producer Dilly Gent and I realise how desperately uncool I am – I’d love to ask her about her work but I can’t handle it. I’m just a fan again.

There is large area put aside for the huge number of London Liggers and a party is already going on, the band are here somewhere. There might even be waiters.

I stop trying to pretend to fit in, drink some beer and dance to Hey Ya.

I spend another day in London. I make a deal with Ken to get a lift up to Nottingham. I’d half planned to go to my parents’ for the night but it feels like a bad idea to break the tour again. Ken drives me in his BMW – Rh fans come in all shapes, do all kinds of jobs, are from all kinds of backgrounds. He’s someone I would never have met but for these shows, and someone I would never imagine would collect set lists and befriend roadies, but here we are speeding up the M1, both equally excited about the show. That’s the thing, I keep hoping each one will be better than the last. They’re not bad but the actual performances on this tour are all but erased. Was I getting what I wanted?

In Nottingham we park up and I rendezvous with my brother who is also going to the gig. I do a bit of shopping before the show. In a skate shop in Hockley I buy a pair of black wristbands with white dice on them.

My brother has a friend who is also on the guest list through some tenuous friend of friends connection and I end up sitting next to her. The seat feels even nearer the stage, The Ice Arena is massive, soulless. I find it very odd to be back in Nottingham at the other end of the venue size scale. In return for the lift I give Ken my other pass and he brings a bunch of the boardies to the afters, they have a polite conversation with Phil (Phil only ever has polite conversations). I see Thom for long enough to give him a dice wristband but it’s all over soon enough, the show already a blur.

(Later Yasuko sends me a photo she took in Dublin, he’s wearing his wristband).

Nov 30, Glasgow SECC

I bunk in with Yasuko and her boyfriend and share a very early taxi ride to the airport for my early flight back to Glasgow. It’s still early when I get home and I go to bed but foolishly don’t turn my phone off. I have a couple of hours before calls start coming in from people who are meeting me at the SECC. I am delirious from tiredness and flu symptoms but I can’t get back to sleep. I head out to the SECC to see who is already there.

Melody Nelson is coming over from Edinburgh to be my plus one for the evening. I have sold on all the tickets I bought to friends and boardies. Our seats are at the very back of the hall, at the top of tall bleachers. The band are so far away that if Thom wasn’t wearing those awful white trousers, I wouldn’t be able to see him. We’re even too far away to properly see the screens. Meanwhile various friends are down in the crush. I couldn’t have done it tonight, too tired, too ill, but I still envy them.

There is a weird three-part sound mix tonight, it sounds odd, like Jonny is too loud. The venue (the hangar-like Exhibition Centre) is atrocious and I usually avoid going to gigs here if I can possibly help it. The layout, with a wide standing area and seats at the back, doesn’t make for a good view at the best of times, but from here at the very back I have a full view of the lighting rig. No one in the seats stands up and I have no leg room, even dancing in the chair is tricky (Yama and I have a go at a hand jive to some of ADF’s set but we are just messing about). By the last encore the few people behind us have left, so we stand up for Karma Police and Everything In Its Right Place and at last break a sweat.

Inept security staff nearly get us lost, but we eventually find the catering – a fridge, some trestle tables and almost a beer each– the SECC is a draughty barn of a place and it feels like we’re in a loading bay at a service station. It’s Melody’s first time and she wants to touch the edge of Ed’s garment, he’s her favourite and she’s very enthusiastic and nervous (and I can’t really deal with it right now). I always feel like I should share this chance to get close to the band but then feel like I can’t help but leave people out. In a way it would be great if everyone could come, but the band probably wouldn’t show up for a big group of people. Sometimes it’s the greatest thing imaginable and sometimes it’s teeth-grindingly embarrassing.

Keiko moves in, determined as ever to get her minute with Thom. I give him a postcard from a T-shirt shop in Nottingham that has Saddam and Bush on it, which seems “of the moment”. I tell him I’m coming tomorrow and then that’s it because it’s killing me, my voice has almost gone. We haven’t really been able to talk this time around and now I can’t talk at all.