woop! tonight was awsome. shame i had to leave so early and could only meet adam and nielly, and not the rest :(
fran did a tottaly acoustic version of '20' no pa. it was awsome!
the highlight was more than us for me. love that song. the gig was definatly better for being smaller, if it was bigger it wouldnt have been as personal at all. loved it! cheers guys
(hope you enjoyed the jaffa cakes dougie)
Chris

Wow! What a fantastic show. This was my fifth time seeing Travis and was by far the best! The lads were on top form and because the venue is only quite small, it felt like a very personal gig. Hightlights for me, were Fran singing "20", with just a guitar and his voice (no mic), and Tied to the 90's.
Andy was his usual self - all over the place and throwing his guitar around, and I dont think Dougie stopped smiling all night. The encores were perfectly picked by the fans (20, Baby one more time, and All the Young Dudes) and all in all was a pretty perfect night.
I hung around for a while after the gig, and would love to say thanks to the guys for being so friendly and chatting to us and letting us have our photos taken with them - it just finished off the gig perfectly for me! I took some great photos, which will be uploaded soon!

Cant wait for the next gig!

WOW!!!!! That was one of the best travis shows that i have seen in a long time. I thought that the venue was perfect, as the academy 2 is only a small it was very intimate and very personal. I thought the set list was perfect, as the entire crowd were able to sing along all of the night. My highlight of the show had to be them playing coming around,as i think its one of their most underated songs by far.
I thought the crowd was great, the atmosphere was electric, and everyone was there for the same reason to see travis belt out all the classic tracks. Id like to thank the band personally, with all the bad stuff happening in the world, and the news always being down, its good that the boys can put a smile back on all of our faces,even if is only for a few hours, it makes the world seem a better place.
Lets all hope that the next album is a gem, and look forward to seeing the band back on the road, and if Micheal Evais reads this, get them headlining glastonbury 2005, they deserve it!!

Glen Perryman

Excellent as always! Was at front blowing bubbles and waving my lollipop at Andy. Much enjoyment, think this was the fifth time I'd seen em and first time with my fella. He was a changed man...Top form, great sound, atmosphere was phenomenal!! Great support too. x

My best Travis gig i think. It was the smallest gig i've been to and so was so much more personal. For this gig i took along my best friend, a Travis virgin if you will. He'd listened to The Man Who but as i say, you can't truely appreciate a band until you see them live. The Magic Numbers were great, we were all bopping away. Then Travis came on and were amazing! Many funny moments including Mr (makes funny noise) which Fran did a good impression of! After the gig i was so happy and so was my best friend, hes such a fan now! He said Travis blew him away and hes trying to get hold of songs now lol, so its thanks once again to Travis for making someone else feel what the rest of us do

Fantastic, really good fun. Another wee venue which just adds to the atmosphere - Fran talked a lot tonight which made it almost like being at a storytellers type thing (you know - small intimate venue, lots of stories) Fran taking the piss out of the nutter monkey man at the back was fun as well.

Everyone was on great form and had a great show.

A major highlight was definately Fran singing "20" totally accoustic absolutely, that totally blew me away.

Do it again soon guys!

Brilliant show! This is only the second time i've seen Travis live, due to my musical whoring (seen many bands, some great, some downright questionable) but for the enjoyment, this somewhat low-key gig was one of the best i've seen. Compared to the Arena gig two years ago, the intimacy was captured perfectly at the Academy, something which is lost in a cavernous venue. The Magic Numbers were a perfectly good warm-up act for the main event, and this extra exposure won't have done them no harm at all. Travis were really good, they performed as though they meant it (some bands i've seen go through the motions, better off taking their instruments to Ca$h Converter) and on the evidence of this showing, it won't be long before i'm going to the next show. Cheers lads.

This was another great smaller venue , could almost touch them!...Really enjoy listening to Fran singing and talking- loved his Tee , said 'Broke bitter and twisted' which reminded me of an album I once used to listen to called flat baroque and berserk Highlight for me was definately acoustic 20 and watching Andy in AIWDIR.

Hope you enjoyed the jaffa cakes !

WOW WOW WOW! What can I say?! As this is the first gig I've ever been to, this was an AMAZING start to, what will hopefully be, a long list of gigs I would attend. The way I got the tickets was pretty jammy (my friend had extra tickets and asked me on the day whether I wanted to go.....hell yeah!:D). My highlight was the acoustic '20' song, that was soooo good and the lads were so good, so down to earth and plus the venue was small, therefore was intimate which i really liked. I'm gonna pick up the photos from that night, tomorrow, can't wait :D. THANK YOU FRAN, DOUGIE, ANDY and NEIL for a great, absoultely amazing night, and to everybody else who helped with the gig that night, it will be very high of my list of the best moments in my life. An experience which I will never forget. Beats doing uni work :P, lol.
My god, this post sounds like I'm really gushing......ah well ;)

Amazing!! 3rd time I have seen travis and each time has been at a smaller venue, Leeds Festival, Doncaster and now tonights gig which was by far the best just because you were so close which made the atmosphere awesome. The guys just look like they are having so much fun and that they are really happy to be there playing for their fans (unlike some bands I could mention.....Oasis). My sister was with me and it was her first gig for years and she loved it to. Highlights, Happy and side.
Keep up the good work fellas!

I wish it was this time last week then I could do it all again, Travis were absolutely fantastic! I've seen them once before but this was definately the better of the two. With it only being a venue for a 1000 people it felt really intermate and I loved how the band interacted with the fans, particularly Fran who made me laugh when he started talking about bogies and taking the mick out of monkey bloke (who was about four people in front of us)

Listening to Travis at times put a real lump in my throat as it brought all the great memories of uni flooding back, especially 'Driftwood' & 'Sing' (hope you enjoyed what you could hear from my mobile Vick) and when Fran played acoustic '20' well it just blew me away. I also loved 'Baby One More Time', my CD of this skips so it was great to hear it in full again and live.

Cheers guys you really did play your little Scottish socks off!


Lancashire Lass

Bus Journey.......
F@*KING STRESSED! All because of one man. Well, when I say one man I mean one virtual man, and by virtual man I mean that moon faced, jaundiced, greedy little gob-shite from the dawn of video games PAC-MAN. Fran's got the game for his computer and for the entire journey I cannot pull myself away from it even though I cant seem to drag myself anywhere near anything like a decent score, damn those ghosts are fast, damn I'm rubbish at computer games!

The Venue.....
It's been the same with all the venues, the name rings a hundred bells in the dusty caverns of the mind but only once you set foot in them do the memories start to take real shape and the sweaty nights of yesteryear come flooding back. The last time we played this place was with Monaco ( for those of you who cant remember, Monaco were a side project band thingy of low slung New Order bassmeister Peter Hook back in the day) and I seem to remember it being a jolly good rocking show, so tonight, as with most of these shows in the smaller venues, the show has some fairly Large boots to fill.

The Show.....
It fills them, boy does it fill them. But I am, as usual running away from myself so let's go back a bit. Before the show we all decide to chill on the bus as it is fitted with stereos and TVs and the dressing room, to be kind, is fitted with a few beers, some nuts and a slightly unusual smell. Mark Radcliffe comes to visit us on the bus still on a high, as we all are, from the Liverpool Cavern gig we did with him the other night. He is akin somewhat to a kid in a sweet shop, as, across the three venues held within the university complex are three separate gigs which he will dot about between during the night. As well as ourselves The Cowboy junkies and Vic Chestnutt are playing in the Academy and Be Bop Deluxe are playing in the venue upstairs from us. First off though, I take him along to see The Magic Numbers doing an as usual excellent job of warming up the crowd for us. As with absolutely everyone I know and respect he seems to take to their wonderful, melodic brand of music. After seeing the good Mr Radcliffe off, I head down to the dressing room to prepare for the show (which comprises usually of pacing around the dressing room nervously until time comes to hit the stage).
Usually, in the first couple of songs you can tell what sort of gig it is going to be and tonight is no exception, from the offset everyone in the room is singing their lungs off to Sing and from there on in the show goes amazingly. Highlights, of which there are many, have to be me and Fran both having a speaker stack each to climb during the All...is Rock, a particularly rocking version of Turn and a fully acoustic version of 20 without the aid of the PA. After the show I get a chance to sit down and have a beer with Jo's uncle and cousin ( for those of you who haven't done their Travis family tree homework Jo is my wife).

Back on the Bus......
The journey to Sheffield is taken over completely and utterly by a game of Adam's invention, in which a place names have to be turned into a band or singer's name. Sounds confusing but it is actually very simple and very good fun after a few too many beers (ah! the rock and roll lifestyle, surely we should be off somewhere trashing hotel rooms, but, as you all probably know, that is not the Travis way). Some of the best were as follows..
Hulltravox (Dougie's)
Bolivia Newton John (Chris our tour manager's)
Argentina Turner (another of Dougie's)
Perth, Wind and Fire (one of my own)
London Henley (Neil's)
Aberdeen Martin (Fran's)

You get the picture?, this kept us amused all the way to Sheffield (I had a teacher in school who used to say "Small things amuse small minds", now I'm beginning to believe her) and so to the end of another day on the great SS Travis.

ps. If you can think of anymore place name\band name send them on a stamp addressed envelope to travisonline, you will be assured to keep this small mind very amused.

So...my second Travis gig, only this one was a lot closer to home. Met up with all the boardies again, we met Travis and The Magic Numbers when they arrived at the venue, very cool. The Magic Numbers are really nice people, their music is so catchy and happy...gets everyone dancing!! The gig was amazing. Stood right infront of Dougie who kept smiling at the gang and me throughout their set. On top form......but the highlight was Fran singing '20' in the encore. I have never heard anything so beautiful in my life. Just him onstage.....stood on the amp right infront of me, just him and his guitar. No mic, no amp.....just the whole crowd stood in total silence. It was fucking amazing....we met the guys yet again. I told Fran that I was Travis STAR from the message board and he knew who I was!!!! VERY HAPPY!! This kicked off a huuuuge converstaion about who was a boardie, and for how long. Fran actually gave me some advice on how to fix my Community Archive problems :) Bless him!!

Great to see travis return to the academy 2. highlight was to see fran do '20' again, my all time favourite travis track. Brilliant!