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Early this year we heard that ANNIHILATOR and SEVEN WITCHES will start their European tour in late April and will be around for about 4 weeks. Later when the dates been announced we decided to go to see them in the U.K., coz they should play at Claudia’s birthday in Dudley.
A nice idea, but after I booked the flight, etc. the schedule got changed… We just heard about it, as we already arrived in England. We arrived from London Stansted on May 8th in Birmingham and had to spend 2 days there out of schedule. Not one of the nicest towns, but we had fun anyway.
Today we finally took a coach to Bradford. We had some kind of lunch and after buying some junk food we headed to the Venue “Rio’s”.
On our way, we saw some long-haired dudes. Claudia was sure, that these are band and crew members already and when we arrived at the venue we got a warm welcome by our friends from ANNIHILATOR, SEVEN WITCHES and the crew!
Tour manager Michael gave us our guest passes and we finally got to do a little chit-chat with some of the guys. It was a sunny afternoon and we were standing outside of the venue and talked to the bus driver of the supporter’s bus. He introduced himself as Martin.
After we told Martin, it seems that this will be our only show due to the change of the schedule, that it would be okay for him to give us a lift to Dudley and then to London, but it depends on the bands. We got excited since we saw all our effort and money already down the drain.
I went to take a look for Jack Frost, coz he’s the head of SEVEN WITCHES and so the one to talk to. When he saw Claudia standing there with their bus driver, he could guess already what we wanted to talk about. He quickly had a chat with his band and also to the opener DEBASE, which we never met before.
The Swedish were so kind to agree and so it seemed that our trip could go on. Claudia and I were looking for cheap accommodation, coz the plan was that the bus should leave the next morning. Soon we found a little hotel where we wanted to ask for a room. While we were waiting for Michael, the tour manager and André, the merchandiser, walked in to check about the shower room. André asked Michael if we could take the shower room when the bands were done and Michael agreed.
And again André took the role of the rescuing angel ;-)So we checked the room with them and then left to pick up our luggage at the coach station.
At the way to the coach station, we called Ryan Air to change our flights. When we returned to the venue we dropped our big blue bag at the bus and went to Bombay stores to get dinner at the Indian restaurant there.
Fans were already in the venue when we got back and got told that they changed plans and that busses will leave at 2 o’clock. Luckily we didn’t need to check in and pay for the room!
We heard a song or two of DEBASE and left to pick up our backpack which we left at the hotel. We use the chance to take a shower and were back in time for the last 3 songs of SEVEN WITCHES.
After a break ANNIHILATOR entered the stage. It was the first time for Joe Comeau in the U.K. and the fans gave him a warm welcome. It also was the first time I saw them at all and Claudia with the new line-up and it was amazing. Unfortunately not that much fans showed up for this show… very likely because of the rapid change of schedule.
After about 90 min. the band left the stage. The crew soon got the equipment loaded and there was enough time to hang out at Rio’s. Some of the band members and most of the crew were enjoying the party at Rio’s. Lots of alcohol was involved and Guitar tech Kyle honoured us with a kind of table dance and pretended to stripped. A few more drinks and who knows what might have happened 😉
Then it was time to leave and so André did the count, everybody was at the bus we could start our travel to Dudley.
For a while, everybody was sitting in the lounge and talking. There was no way of buying any drinks at the truck stop, so one after the other left to get some sleep. That’s the way it is in the U.K.! You will be kept dry after 1am.
We arrived at Dudley’s JB’s in the early morning, everybody was sleeping…The bus had to be parked in front of the venue, coz the gate was locked and we couldn’t enter the parking lot.
(Written by Claudia and me)