Well, the service station was interesting for about 5 minutes! I was lucky it was open 24 hours I suppose.

I kept occupied by playing the arcade machines and reading the Nirvana interviews in Q, Select and Smash Hits! I tried to crash out behind a barrier in one of the restaurant areas, but couldn’t sleep at all. Back to the machines. Had my dinner at 2am! I tried to crash out again, but a security guard said I couldn’t, but by now it was light again. Just dossed about for the next six hours or so and went to check on my car.

The extremely unhelpful chap there said, “Oh, it might be ready today. ” Fuck – I did not want to spend another sleepless night here. He said he’d do his best and to try later. Hmm! Pissed about for three more hours and really got fed up and miserable. I prayed it to be ready on my return, and lo and behold, it was parked outside – yeah!

The chap asked how I’d like to pay, and I said by cheque, but he said he could only take two cheques for £50, and the bill came to £185!

He suggested a bank transfer, so I had to ring up my bank but they wouldn’t do it without written permission, and said it would take three days anyway – oh my god! You can’t even begin to imagine how I felt just then!

Finally, I phoned good old mother and used her Access to pay the bill – that’s what mums are for, right? (thanks mum!).

At last – on my way home. It was a pity I had to fuck about for the last day, and I nearly stopped off on the way back to try and find another gig (Citizen Fish), but I was so tired I thought better of it. I got back at about 8.15pm, by which time meant I’d been awake for about 34 hours! Needless to say, I had a beer and fell straight to sleep, to dream about driving, and some band I met – forget their name now!

ASK YOURSELVES A QUESTION?

Ralph: No, how about if I ask you: Did you enjoy following us around all week, considering you needed your clutch repaired to the tune of £200 because of it, and what are your impressions of VF as people?

Shaun: Yeah, I really enjoyed following the band around. I wasn’t really expecting to get to all the gigs because of my car (I knew it was going to break down somewhere!), but as there were only 2 shows left and I was halfway towards the Wigan show, I just thought fuck it – let’s do it! The car is a bummer, but what the fuck, you gotta have some fun! I had adopted a kind of motto after the car broke down, which goes “First comes the Victims Family, second my welfare and finally my car’s welfare!”

The Victims Family as people? Well, anybody who’s prepared to talk to an ugly bastard like me has to be cool!

Larry is just great! Initially, I thought of him as a kind of Cheech character. Not quite with it if you know what I mean! But fuck, it’s always the quiet ones who make you laugh the most, and he’d often come out with great one-liners or even one-worders!

Tim was happy to talk, especially about music (‘cept maybe his previous metal band!). He was surprised at my knowledge of bands that he liked or knew and “chuffed to fuck” I picked up the Pitchfork CD for him in Wigan. He especially had an affection for English sayings such as “champion” and “fark right orf mate!”

Ralph, I talked to most and he was prepared to chew the fat about anything from music to politics and didn’t mind giving me the rundown on the history of Nicaragua. To discover the fact he used to drop acid and still smokes dope really surprised me – he’s a pretty together bloke, though he has the benefit of more years than the rest of us! Is that ageist, Ralph?

I don’t think you can fault their musicianship in any way, even if you don’t like their music, and I still stick to the fact that most good technical bands are three pieces. It seems that you have to make do with what you’ve got and it’s fun to explore new ways to do things with your instruments.

You’d never realise Tim only has a tom, a floor tom and one cymbal (besides the regular bass, snare and hi-hat) by the amount of different rhythms he gets from the kit. Larry’s bass playing is incredible – I’ve never seen hands move so fast. Ralph is also exploring the guitar and looking for new bits of it to play, and all at the same time as streamlining the songs into more conventional patterns. Wow – what a band!

Of course, I have to mention sound man and part-time merchandiser Josh, who, again, was very approachable even though suffering from a cold for most of the time. Hey Josh, how many of those guitar string bearings did you end up with? Enough for a necklace, I’m sure! And finally, Hetty, tour organiser and main driver, who had to put up with many jibes about her love for house music! She told me they got their van tyres fixed in Newport within a half-hour, and a clutch sorted out in Stoke in a couple of hours. She couldn’t understand how come how come my car was going to take so long to fix. I think maybe I can put it down to not being a pretty blonde Dutch girl!

Five cool people, six progressively better rocking shows, mad music, mad people, mad times – you want to know if I enjoyed myself? Go figure!

Hey dudes… Later!