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The Witchwood, Ashton-under-Lyne

Posted by Charlie in 2002 John Jorgenson & Friends UK Tour

At precisely 7.05am, the doors to the pub below opened, and the TV was on, a mere 6 inches below my sleeping head. It is the England – Nigeria World Cup match. I think I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep for about 10 minutes, but eventually I gave up and staggered downstairs. I sat at the bar, drinking coffee and munching on a sausage sandwich while my bodily functions tried desperately to come to grips with the early hour! As it was, the match itself was a frustrating disappointment, but England are through to the next round (where they play Denmark), so people seemed happy with the result. After the match, I managed to get a bit more sleep before we left for Manchester. Not a long drive by any means. In fact the routing on this particular tour has been remarkably good. We only really have a couple of hard journeys (most notable being the one from New Brighton to Waterford,Ireland). We made it to the next gig, a dingy room behind a pub in Ashton-u-Lyne, with time to spare. Time enough, in fact, for JJ to inspect the potential accommodation, and decide that we were NOT staying there. I don’t even want to know what it was like! We booked 3 rooms at a Travelodge on the M6, which is half way to the next gig (Chester)…. so we’ll have a head start in the morning. The venue treated us to a Chinese meal in a nearby restaurant (actually, they covered £4 worth of it, and we paid the rest), while the opening act were playing. I did catch the last few tunes. Dean O’Shea and his group are a guitar-hero style Rock band. The musicianship was excellent, and they had the crowd’s attention when we arrived back. Speaking of crowds, once again the attendance was not what we would have liked, but they were all here to see US…. which is the most important aspect as far as I am concerned. The sound was a bit strange – we were getting reflections off the low ceiling above us, so it was all washing around. Good thing I use ear monitors. It really helps filter out the extraneous noises! despite all our problems, we managed to entertain the audience, which is most important. After the gig, we drove for about an hour to the Travelodge, and collapsed into bed!