12th to 17th October

12^th October, Newcastle University

Arrive at newcastle and find VD fans outside the venue that have been there since10.45 in the morning. Whenever that happens theres generally going to be a good gig. Newcastle has always been the best place to play, The crowd are mental here. Timm comes in the van and tells us we have sold 110 tickets for tonighrs gig in advannce which is very gig. People who work for the uni start loading in our stuff so we just chill out in the van and go to the very nice dressing room. Great rider too. The venue is pretty small but we find out thhat we actually sold 180 tickets in advance at the final count, which was ace.  I went out of the venue to find some food at KFC and return to see a massive queue outside the venue, about 200 kids outside and loads inside on the stairs too! Find a sofa, sit down with some mates and get pretty comfortable, signing things and chilling out. Support bands go down well, and we get ready to platy. Turns out to be an awesome gig, probably our best ever in terms of mental crowd performance, going apeshit for almost the whole set and loving every minute. Newcastle proves itself to be an amazing gig again, thank you to the awesome crowd that have given us probably the best gig of the tour!

13^th October, Greenock 204

Have a LONG drive up, about 5 hours to greenock, a small little scottish villlage with some fishing apparatus near the venue. A queue before we play is outside again, about 80 kids inside at least by the time the support band have finished their set. They were nice guys, forgotten what they were called though! There was an impressive crowd settled round for when we came on, but they failed to move much. Broke a string far too early on in the set and lost momentum to be honest until the last four songs, which were good. Very young crowd, mostly 13-16 year oldÕs, wasnÕt the best VD performance really. A disappointment after newcastle for us because we didnÕt play as well as we should have.

14^th October, Glasgow Barfly

`Having played the london barfly about 5 times and knowing what a cosy little place it was I was surprised to see a nice big(ish) glasgow one. The best barflly is blatantly the temporarily defunct sheffield barfly though. Despite being an over 14Õs shows it wasnÕt really all that young a crowd, in fact there ended up being 20 people at the bar all pissed off cos they werent being served at the kiddies show. They were into it though, we played well and were satisfied, despite bollocks all promotion from the venue. Ken nearly got laid. NEARLY.

15^th October, Day off in Inverness.

Shaved my head. Went shopping, bought kerrang! And read about us playing footie with Hell is for heroes in it. Quality. DidnÕt do anything else.

16^th October, Smithton Hall, Inverness

Arrived and noticed we were playing a nursery kids schoool hall. Ôlearn how to count to tenÕ is the title of a poster on the rather attractive (to McBen) pink walls. Ken studies but only makes it to four. Find out theres a vegetable called an Ôocra sproutÕ or something like that. Feel clever. Great rider, nice venue, play football and demonstrate exactly what englannd are missing out on as we manage to keep up the ball for a total of 4 kicks. Just after soundcheck we go for a radio interview, apparentky 15000 people heard us live on air reviewing ÔThe CoralÕ, ÔIdlewildÕ and ÔThe SugababesÕ. Sugababes got our vote. We all learnt that The Coral are very weird and we donÕt like them. Ken said its good ÔforeplayÕ music. Whatever that means! After the excitement of that we get fed and go to play the gig. The crowd stand, completely stilll for the first 5 songs, cheering very loudly at the end of each one. As we ask the crowd to move forward for Ôjump jump jumpÕ we erxpected some lame arse half hearted head nodding, at best maybe Keith (crazy guy) going mental by himself. Instead the crowd went in with a full on mosh pit and the rest of the gig ruled. Get told weÕre ÔlightweightsÕ by the support band so in true VD fashion we go out to their bar theyÕre at and all get pissed as fuck.

17^th October, The Loft, Forres.

Special mention must go to the beautiful scenery. The hills are amazing, the lakes and the water around this area look really nice. Smashing Pumpkins ÔHere Is No WhyÕ followed by Ô DisarmÕ on my compilation Mini Disc make everything feel great. Not sure why, im clearly turning gay or something but it really is amazing!

Despite this, I didnÕt know what to make of this place! Turn up and itÕs a farm! The place weÕre staying in is the lovely promoters house and its very homely. It IS a home, but still! Get to the actual venue and itÕs a converted barn! Nice place though, small, 100 capacity, got 91 people in, was ace. The girls were fucking fine here, was eyeing up one particular lady wearing a beret sorta hat thing. Very fit. Meet some other girls beforehand, one of them ends up being ridiculously skanky and tries to steal a hoody, then asks for my shoe, my necklace, my hat, my phone number, my address, my phone and my shirt, Ends up nicking my hat, succesfully too, had to buy a shitty horrible girls hat, for 10 quid mainly cos another fit girl says it suits me. I will be wearing this hat all the time, thank you girl who let me have it, albeit for a price! Had a tough time convincing girls I was 17É but more of that later! The gig ended up being on a TINY stage and was fucking ace, the mosh pit was pretty wikkid after 5 songs in, was great until the end of the set! Ended up playing my guitar solo correctly! Brilliant! Got with the fit girl with the beret/hat thing, she was cute. Rodney didnÕt, Ben was hovering around and Ken got with someone too. Ken gave away his fleece to a girl. What a guy! A dimensionally challenged, emotionaly retarded and personality deficient ÔladyÕ (everyone helped with that description! Ð am sitting round the fire at the house with the band) had a go at Ken for no reason. Was quality, am now sat here chilling out

BREAK OF TOUR DIARY SHIT

Here is a list of the people involved in the VD tour diary cos I havent done this yet

THE BAND

RODNeY - The Singer and all round funny guy age 17

VD TOM - Me. The Guitarist, age 17

McBen Ð Bassist and general subject of piss taking and beatings, 20

DJ Ken Ð Horny 24 Year Old Japanese man, 24

THE CREW

Timm Cleasby (or as Ken says ÔTimm FlisbyÕ) Ð Our Tour manager, obviously models himself on Nazi Leaders.Very harsh. But gets things done, heÕs our tour manager.

Scott Gillies Ð Our Roadie. Knows how to pick up women and does a lot of stuff, all round great guy.

October 18^th, Day Off, Travelling to Shetland