We left this morning from Aberdeen in a drowsy state. Getting up in the morning is the hardest thing to do sometimes.

The bus we are travelling in is from a company called Phoenix. Our driver is called Tim. The bus sleeps six so after a couple of hours I lie down and drift off. Sleeping in transit in a bunk is the best. The constant motion of it all just sends me into the deepest sleep.

I wake up in lovely Newcastle. Feeling and no doubt looking like a half shut knife I fall out of the bus where I'm greeted by some folk who will be coming to see us tonight. Pictures and autographs are had. These people are Scottish.

Shoes. My wee grey shoes have had it. Seen their day. When I get a pair of shoes I wear them until they are falling off my feet or smell so bad that they have to be destroyed. These ones will have to be destroyed. I walked into the city after lunch to get a new pair.

Newcastle folk are cool and in my humble opinion have the coolest accent in the UK. In a shopping mall that is verging on having it own tropical weather system I purchase my new shoes. Clarks. Simple. Practical. Comfortable.

As I wait in the queue a bloke comes up and whispers to me that he believes 'The Man Who' to be his album of the year. Simon Wainwright I think his name was. Nice bloke.

The heat at this point is unbearable so shoes in bag I spill onto the main drag and head towards what will be home for the next 8 hours or so. Newcastle University.

Remy Zero are stunning tonight. It's the first time they've done an extensive tour of the UK. They played at T in The Park this year. Anyways you'll hopefully be hearing from them later.

The venue tonight is a dive but helluva good dive. The shower back stage (I never shower at the venue but do so today because a wash is urgently needed) is the type of shower that was built to break down. A bad shower is a levelling experience.

Naked, soap in the eyes, thermostat deciding on a whim to go from super hot and melting everything it comes into contact with and then freezing cold as if it had never known heat.

Travis play a stormer tonight. It's picking up. The slideshow is my favourite part of the gig. The photographs are funny. We play 'Slideshow' in the dark. 'Flowers in the Window' on acoustic for encore then 'Baby one more Time'.

2 hours after the show we leave and there are loads of folk waiting for us outside for autographs and photos. In the headlights of an articulated lorry, crouched down, sitting on my laptop case signing posters and CDs. Nice memory.

This was my 2nd Travis gig. I travelled down from Inverness with my mate Barry telling him for 5 hours how great the gig was going to be! We met our mate Paul down there, he was in Uni there. The gig was fantastic, right down at the front. Before the show Paul and Barry didn't really know the band, but had been force-fed the two albums by myself when ever they drove in my car! After the show they had been converted to the Travis way! Fran was on good form the night if I remember with his stories of the songs. The songs from The Man Who sounded really good live, and Blue Flashing Light was probably the highlight, really dark and the sound was great