First of all id like to point out that A. Im in no way a ned, and this is the first and believe me only time i will ever do anything of the like again... And B. To those whom I may insult by my actions, let me assure u these were the actions of a very drunk man. But in any case if i have insulted u in any way then im sorry... i can only apologise.

That said.. here goes. Well the night started out like any other night, I had been drinking since 5 so by the time 8.00 came around i was fairly half cut. We were in campus sittin lisnin to Travis that I put on the juke box and talkin about how many times we had seen the band and all that and everything was going swimmingly. So we were drinkin till about 8:40 till we started the short walk from campus to the ABC. Now, every time iv been at a gig it always has started at bout 9:00, 9:10, so we were thinkin that 8:45 was just nice timing, we were wrong. We arrived two verse into a magnificent Eyes Wide Open. it was so good seein the travs back and like many other people have said yes, they were beyond good. So... We were standing actually right at the bar to get a good view, cos the ABC is raised. I then thought to myself ( whats that guys beard all about) to find I was standin next to dominic diamond off Xfm and ex-gamesmaster presenter. Had a chat with him, he said he was i-viewing the band pre gig and that the i-view will be on his show today, nice guy. So, i was content on watching the gig from the bar but my gf wanted to get a CLOSER look lol , so we decided to go down the front. The aforementioned song ended and we had a wee jaunt down the front to watch pipe dreams.... And it all went wrong, big time. For some ungodly reason i thought it would be a great idea to throw 3 quarters of a pint of lager into the crowd. Now, i know what ur thinkin, hes a wank. and yes that would be about right, and i wont try and justify it at all, it was pure stupidity through the eyes of a drunk man. But i got my just deserts. The second the pint left my grasp this woman bouncer with black hair and a guy bouncer huckled me out the back saying i had to go, i was all like " please dont chuck me out, i was just havin a laff " but alas they had none of it and chucked me out the back door. So, here i stood, 5 songs into the gig i was waiting on for 3 years and im standing like a dickhead, all be it deservedly, outside the skanky back door of the ABC sadly trying to listen to the song i could hear.. which i think was sing. Then, the bouncers that chucked me out appeared below me having a fag down stairs at a different door. They clocked me and told the other bouncers what happened and they all had a good laugh at me and said " go home ya stupit cu*t " so i was then totally ragin mad when UREKA! i hatched i plan, i thought to myself, i still have a stub so ill try and walk back in the front door. This was relying on 2 things, A. if the bouncersw that chucked me put were there i was fucked. and B. I had to appear sober. So, i casually approached the bouncers at the door and said " Thats me back " they said " what ? " i said " aye, i told u i was usin my phone remember " and hey presto they checked my stub and let me back in. I WAS ECSTATIC. It was like that bit in the Shawsank Redemption when he finally escapes. Plus the best thing was I got in to see the start of a superb rocky Selfish Jean. So i rejoined my bro my mate and by then my not to happy gf and i was so over the moon to be back in, and doubly pleased to get one over the smarmy fuckin woman bouncer. But, in shock i thought i was nabbed again.. by the same wee bint who got me before so my bro said " watch this wee man " and turned and started talkin to her. Que Benny Hill music. I walked really fast ( almost ran ) into the middle of the crowd and stayed and watched the rest of, in my opinion, the 2nd best travis gig ever alone, but delighted. So half way through WDIAROM( the set closer ) i decided to go back and meet my bro and my mate and my gf. We were standin right at the back, next to the t-shirts and i could still see the same jobsworth wee angry woman furiously hunting for me, it was all quite hillarious. So as the last few notes are being played i was spotted. Now by this time i was so drunk/silly withlaughter/being a wee nuisance I was like.. ah well iv seen the gig anyway and proceeded to clap the wee angry woman when she was huckling me AND my mate, who done not a thing wrong, out the venue. She looked so angry. The kind of anger u have to see to believe. And just as we approached the front door the icing was firmly placed on the cake. She piped up with " u wont get to see the last songs ha ha " and i said " really!?, listen ugly iv seen travis too many times to know that they always end with WDIAROM, so ha ha ya wee ugly cow. " Me and my mate were in histerics. and i said with a parting shot, " oh btw, i only missed one song, ur good at ur job eh ! " and with that the door was shut behind me, and my gig was finished in style.

Now id like to point out, again, if ur insulted by this im sincerely sorry. Also i truly love the band so guys, if ur readin this im so so so sorry if u got laggerd by my drunken stupidity, the gig was out of this world and I cant wait for the barras. Just to finish, i hope u have enjoyed readin this as much as i have enjoyed typin it. Sorry for the shit grammar and spellin, but im still hungover... God, all in all, defo the funniest gig of my whole life. THE END

Always a pleasure, never a chore.

I turned up at the ABC at 4pm, already to find a few boardies already in attendance. Despite the cold, the time zipped by and come 7pm, it was time to head up the many steps inside to the venue. The first thing i remember thinking is 'this place is small!', then i looked up and saw the massive disco ball and thought 'that's a big disco ball!'.

I raced over to the far side of the stage to take up my spot at the barrier, right in front of where Dougie would later be. The support tonight were Brinkman. I quite liked them, despite thinking that every song was a Bluetones rip-off.

At about 8.45, Travis were on. I don't remember being overly excited for some reason. I think it was more a relief of "Yes! They're back!". It was a good gig though. I remember thinking that the new songs sounded great live (having only heard the ones which had been put up on the Travis myspace) and was instantly drawn to Selfish Jean. It was awesome. Another thing i remember was that Dougie's hips were in full swing. He was really going for it! And the girls i was with all looked a bit flustered by the thrusts of his hypnotic hips. Fran wasn't quite as talkative as he usually might be, but when he did speak to the crowd, you could tell he was in good spirits. At one point, he was talking about the band joining myspace, and how strange it was to see people he recognised in the front row of the gig. At that point he looked at me and smiled. So i took it that he was talking about me! Which was a lovely moment for me. It was to get better though...

After the gig, myself and the 4 ladies i was with decided to 'wait around' to see if we could catch the band. Come 12am, realising that we had missed the last train home, we decided that we'd wait all night if we had to. Best decision i ever made? Yep!

12.30, and out came Andy and Dougie. The excitement within me was boundless. This would be the first time i meet them, and it was fantastic. It turned the evening into the best night of my life. After the initial excitement (which took a good 3 days to die down completely), about half an hour later, Neil and Fran came out. Double the excitement this time! I kept it cool though, and was totally concious of not being 'giddy'. I stood and chatted to Fran about Selfish Jean, saying it was my favourite of the new songs and that it was awesome tonight. He stood and told me how it was written and recorded. While he was talking, in my head i was going "Oh my God. Fran Healy is talking to YOU! You. Not anyone else. You! He's talking to you". It was so odd, but the greatest thing in the world.

In the taxi on the way home, i was constantly shaking my head in utter disbelief. I had finally met my heroes. Yet i still had trouble believing it. It took a few days to sink in, but i've got the pictures to take me back. Probably the best night of my life :)

at last, our first Travis show in their home town - Glasgow! Yay! and also in such a small, cosy venue. We arrived the ABC about 3:30 pm and we weren't the first ones there. I recognized a lot of faces from the board or myspace but I couldn't name much of them. The only one I recognized instantly was Andrew who came along with anyp, and Vince who arrived later. Jana, Sanne and I made it to the front again and after waiting outside the ABC for hours we couldn't wait to see Travis live again..it felt like they were gone for a century! ;) I'm afraid because all the anticipation for Travis we barely enjoyed the support band - Brinkman. I think I'm going to listen to some of their songs later now. ;)
We were really exited about the new songs and they right started with one - Eyes Wide Open, a pretty cool starter. The glaswegian crowd really rocked to every single song. Selfish Jean was the BEST, what a song!!!:-D This one and My Eyes are my favorites of the new record and I liked them live even better than the studio versions. It was so good to hear all the old singalongs again as well, like Pipe dreams (still one of the best songs to me) Good Feeling,Turn and of course...Why does it always rain on me. Shortly before the end of Side Fran went to Andy, whispered something into his ear, than to Dougie and than to Neil so we were like "Ok, what's coming NOW? *lol* Firstly we thought they are gonna do Staying Alive but contrary to the setlist they continued with U16 Girls, WOOHOO! one extra song! That was so top. The ABC was boiling I tell yous!
After a little break Andy did his crazy climbing action at All I want to do is rock, he even went down to the crowd.
You could really see that Travis enjoyed it to be back on stage.
At one point Fran took off his shoes and continued playing on stripey socks, haha...looked kinda twee...and was defenitely more comfortable x-)
When they finished with Why does it always rain on me we couln't believe it was over already... I mean just thought "huh? didn't they just start??" It was much too short, well it wasn't they played 18 songs after all but it FELT much too short *sigh*
We decided to wait outside the venue to meet the band at last. After all it was my tenth Travis show and I still havn't met them before and still had no signed Cd or anything.. It took a while. The poor Andrew went - came back for a while, went yet in the end and THEN the band came out. Sorry mate :-/
First Dougie and Andy. Dougie made us laugh by saying something like "ahhh, it's like meeting stars!" lol And Andy talked to us a bit, adviced us a bar in Glasgow (Vic's Bar near the School of Art) and we took photos with them. They were so nice. When Andy said good bye I asked him about Neil and Fran and he said they're still inside. He and Dougie just want to eat something that's why they went earlier. After a while Neil and Fran came out. Aww man, they're all so nice and sweet! Got my Good Feeling booklet signed by all four. Fran told us that little Clay has a German Passport btw, haha we had to laugh when someone took his picture along with paul_c who was maybe a head taller than him. First he stood on tip-toes to apear taller and than he ducked down and looked up to him like a wee boy x-D...there is a picture of it as well as I happily found out now (thank you, Paul!!:-D)
when we came back to the hotel after the show I noticed that the last pictures we took with my camera were lost for some reason, so i only had this one picture of Fran which we took with Sannes camera. Man, I was totally distraught but back home Jana luckily stumbled over this picture recovery program with what we could save the other band pix...phew! ok, they are kind of overexposed but I don't care :-)
anyway...what a night!! Can't wait to the big Germany tour...if they gonna do one. HOPEFULLY! :-)