Students Union, Newcastle
9th March 2002

Support band: Hothouserockband

After the warm-up gig went so well it was perhaps inevitable that the opening night would be plagued with some problems – nothing major at least.  Nick’s guitar amp went during 'Unwind' resulting the song being played without lead guitar.  Fortunately Toby managed to get the chords right “for the first time” at least.

Initially the audience seemed very shy and left a large space between themselves and the band, promoting Toby to gesture everyone forward during the first song.  Once everyone had moved forward and relaxed a little the show really took off.

New track Breakdown opened the set main set and set the pace for the rest of the show, only slowing down to let the band and audience catch their breath for ‘Forgiveness’ and ‘Don’t Pray For Me’ in the middle of the show.

Completely new track 'Inside Out' seemed to go down well – it’s a good rocky number not unlike the latter-day Angels output so general consensus was a thumbs up.  The EP tracks were generally well received and only ‘Forgiveness’ seemed a little out of place in the set.

The venue itself was quite large, sadly there was a bar in the middle which effectively cut the room in half.  Still, most of the crowd had moved as far forward as possible so this wasn’t a big problem.  Speaking of the crowd there were surprisingly few of us which was a bit of a shame after the number of people squeezed into Murrays in Scarborough the previous night. 

Anyway, the band were on top form, possibly showing a few signs of nerves here and there but the show was carried out remarkably well. 

My personal highlight and lowlight occurred during 'Too Much Too Young' – after the guitar solo Toby pointed at me and gestured me up onto the stage.  After a little coercion I mounted the stage in spectacular fashion and fell into a small gap between the stage and amps – cue laughter from the crowd and a bit of a scar on my leg as a reminder of my time on stage. Still I managed to carry on and sing the final verse and outro of the song with Toby on his microphone.  That will be something I’ll never forget so thanx Toby!

After the show Toby came out and signed autographs and mingled with the crowd.  He was also asked to leave an answerphone message on someone’s phone who hadn’t gone to the gig that evening!  Maybe next time they will.

Breakdown
All Roads Lead To You
Some People Are More Equal Than Others
Young Gods
Slipping Through Your Fingers
Inside Out
Forgiveness
Don't Prey For Me
Unwind
Radical Your Lover
I Won't Be With You
Womankind
Refresh Yourself
Too Much Too Young
Harder All The Time
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The Way That I Live