High Rise Tour - Folkestone - 20/5/17
As I got to Tom’s house the next day I was informed that the van was having more trouble when they were getting home from Maidenhead (immobilizer stuff) which meant it’d be safer not to take it to Folkesone. Instead the plan was to use cars instead. We had three in total - Dan’s, Sam’s and Ricky’s. Everyone else set off and it was just me, Ricky and Tom left in the house waiting on Tom’s clothes to be washed and dried! Eventually we set off in Ricky’s car and everything was going to plan. That was until we literally reached Folkestone and were 6 minutes away from the venue - car problems again! We had just come off a round-a-bout and had to pull over to the side of the road. Ricky had called for the RAC but it didn’t look like they’d be getting there for a while so Sam came in his car to pick up the gear in Ricky’s car as well as Tom and I. It was a good thing Folkestone isn’t too far away and we made it in time for loading in and soundcheck. We had our fingers crossed that Ricky would also make it to the venue in time for the set later on. Plan B was to have Dan on guitar and Ryan back on bass. He wasn’t able to make the whole tour due to work but he was able to come to this date. In the meantime Tom, Dan and I headed out into town to get some well earned fish and chips because that’s what you do when you’re by the coast!
Defences were first on this time round then Callous Calligula and High Rise. The venue was fairly busy as it was a saturday so it was nice to have a good turn out. Fortunately Ricky made it in time to play as his dad waited by his car for the RAC and he drove his dad’s car to the venue. This date was also when I got some of my favourite photos on the whole tour, there was plenty of white light and a nice selection colours in rotation. The only real down side was that there wasn’t any space to take photos from the front so I had to go behind the sound desk at the side then jump on stage.
Afterwards we packed up into our cars and headed on home via a service station for a late night meal at our favourite fast food place on tour - McDonalds. (We might as well have been sponsored by them at this point.) Sam dropped us all off home and we tried to get as much rest as we could before the drive up to Norwich.
