I got to Coventry well before noon, and met up with
freakspawn again at the statue of Lady Godiva. This was one of the highlights of the tour for me, as I hadn't seen her for what must have been the best part of a year, and we had a lot of catching up to do. We had a chips and eggs lunch in Whitefriars and succeeded in finding her a new pair of boots, and then we got caught in a sudden downpour and got absolutely drenched! We repaired to hers to towel off; then she had to return to work and I spent a few hours on my own reading a book by the radiator. Jules arrived bang on time to drive us to Leamington Spa, where we found the venue without any problems. The place was empty when we first went in there, and so we headed straight out again in search of a cashpoint and some food. Unfortunately, we weren't exactly spoilt for choice in the latter, but the landlord of the pub we'd wandered into gave us permission to go out and bring back some kebabs from the takeaway further down the street, which was really pretty decent of him.
Fortified, we went back to The Willoughby, and found it packed. We were left with standing room only at the back. Adam & Eric took care of the first part of the evening's musical entertainment, playing a slightly shorter set, but impressing the audience nonetheless. A young man named Adi rushed to buy their cd-s, then got a bit upset when we told him he could download about 600 UMs for free from their website. All I have to offer by way of illustration are a few grainy pics, but he has posted some video of the evening on his LJ
here.
Also, there's a recording to be had from
skylar_muc's LJ
here (friends only).
For David, this was his third time playing Leamington, and he seemed really at home there. It was a good gig, and an appreciative audience; yet it's my least favourite of the tour. The venue hadn't been the best choice: the pub only consisted of one room and an upstairs, and had remained open to business to punters who only wanted to come in for a drink. They got a gig thrown in for free (but at only £4 entry, we almost did too), but saw no reason to keep their voices down or refrain from fighting at the bar.
As we were planning to drive up to Glasgow that very same night (or rather, Jules and
christyraymond were; I just tagged along in the backseat), we weren't in a hurry to leave the place
but eventually, we did have to go. We drove back to Coventry to drop
freakspawn off and park Jules's car in her street, then piled into
christyraymond's dinky automobile and set our sights for Scotland.
(tbc)