Wow, what can I say? It was the first time I had ever seen Travis and it was fantastic.
I was 17 and me and my friend Fran(cesca) had gone to see Mansun in concert. This gig wasn't actually at the Bierkeller, it was moved to the Anson Rooms at Bristol University, I assume because it was a bigger venue.
On the way in we saw Travis t-shirts but as we had never heard of them we decided to see what they were like before we bought one!
When the guys came on, they just lit up the stage, me and my friend were mesmorised by them. They had such a twinkle in their eyes and I remember thinking what nice guys they seemed. We were fairly near the front and instead of just treating the support band as something to listen to to pass the time, we were so into them and agreed they were ace, from then on, we were hooked! To this day I still love the first album, and it always reminds me of that night, it still sounds as fresh as it did then.
The band had so much energy and there was a real feeling of enjoyment in the crowd, they just seemed to bring something out of people. And all 4 of the guys looked gorgeous! Sorry, it has to be said!
I remember they played U16 Girls and said it would be their next single, all night we were desperatly trying to remember the name of the song so we could order it from our local record store.
As they left the stage Dougie threw his empty cigarette packet into the crowd, which my friend caught and still has now!
No offence to Mansun but Travis stole the show for us, they were who we were talking about all the way home, we just wanted to hear more and agreed that one day they would be big, but I guess we didn't know just how big.
Needless to say, everyone else was impressed too, so all the t-shirts were sold out when we got outside, I was gutted. Luckily I managed to order one from HMV and I've found out since that it's pretty rare, so it's one of my most prized possessions, along with my signed photo of the band and the photo of me and Fran when I met him at Glastonbury :)