War of the Roses - The First 1000 miles

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Greetings from Mansfield, my stopover for the night. It's been a manic few days since my last post. Thursday I was in Sheffield, playing the Nero outside the beautiful town hall. This was the day I was also joined by Sarah Howells (Paper Aeroplanes) and we proceeded to spend most of the day & night leaching off free wi-fi from whichever Wetherspoons was nearest - we got cabin fever in the end and had to retire to our hotel!!
Friday saw us arrive in Liverpool - home to the greatest football team on earth ;-)
Another city were my tomtom decided to send me down bus lanes! At the Bold st Nero we met a lady whose eclectic music tastes made us feel shamefully inadequate - Lupe Fiasco, Janelle Monae & Al Lewis!!
In the evening I bid farewell to Sarah and went to meet up with an old friend from Abergele and discuss LFC and a possible homecoming gig. Which brings us to today....
Manchester - quite possibly the best day so far, it seemed like the traffic/parking gods were smiling on me for once! Both gigs went really well, sold plenty of copies of 'in the wake' and got to see some old friends who I first met during my year living in Toulouse back in 2005!!
Plus Wales won in the rugby
All in all a good day - which brings me to Mansfield and the 1000 mile juncture of the tour...right time to go 'match of the day' is starting....

Goodbye Scotland, Hello North East England

Day 2 & 3 - Newcastle and Leeds
So we left Edinburgh on Tuesday morning our stomachs filled with delicious porridge (check out Hula off Greenmarket) and proceeded to head south to Newcastle. It was another good gig and people seemed to enjoy themselves. Yesterday was my first attempt at two shows in a day, bit stressful, especially when you have to manoeuvre your way through Leeds' crazy one-way system. It was also to be my first unplugged set as the power socket in the Albion place Nero was faulty!! Nevertheless everyone was friendly and helpful! Parking is a bit of a nightmare though!! I finished off the day by heading to Blackburn for an interview on BBC Radio Lancashire with John Barnes - alas not the ex-footballer unfortunately! Next stop Sheffield....

And so it begins....

Well that was fun! After all the build-up, I'm now finally up and running on this Caffè Nero tour. Edinburgh, though cold has been a great starting point.
The Scots are always friendly and the Lothian Rd crew were no exception! Now for some dinner...