GIG DIARY
 

Koko, London - 3 March 2006
My first Go! Team gig. Folks say that when they first saw the Sex Pistols, everything changed. Every other band suddenly seemed slow, dull and meaningless by comparison - instantly irrelevant - and people were electrified and inspired by something unique, indescribable and unstoppable. The Koko gig was my Pistols moment. I can't begin to describe it better. I'll try harder with some of the following...

The Dome, Brighton - 28 October 2006   
'Pumpkin Radiation' comes to Brighton a few days early with a show billed as a hometown Halloween party. The band are decked out in various hilarious Halloween costumes and the show's a killer - one with a hockey mask and a chainsaw - on a dirt bike. Although I'd seen a few gigs at The Dome over the years, the last one to see me on the dancefloor there was a Bauhaus gig 24 years earlier. My dancing had not much improved in that time - but dance I did. Even to The Ice Storm - with a rash of goosebumps and an overwhelming sense of joy that this and Titanic Vandalism and Hold Yr Terror Close and Bottle Rocket could all be, and indeed were, by the same band. As Ladyflash trashed proceedings to a suitably chaotic close I go and track down my wife and friends and point back towards the stage with a big stupid grin on my face, lost for words - but they all knew what I meant.

Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth - 17 May 2007
Probably my most eagerly anticipated Go! Team gig. The band had only gigged once since The Dome and, having only seen them in two large venues, I was riveted walking into the tiny confines of the Wedgewood Rooms - in awe and expectation that a band that sounded as BIG as The Go! Team were going to be playing just a few feet away. Plus there's talk of new songs and a sneaky look at a set list confirms this in the shape of Flashlight Fight which they open with, Keys To The City and Grip Like A Vice. The wedged-in Wedgewood crowd are ecstatic and the gig is a triumph. The Power Is On, Titanic Vandalism and Bottle Rocket all deliver everything their titles promise. The Ice Storm is beautiful, Hold Yr Terror Close more so. Doing It Right and Huddle Formation are pop perfection and Grip Like A Vice winds up the set so tightly I feel like my head may explode. Thankfully it doesn't - which ensures that a) the dance floor isn't all covered in goo and b) everyone can enjoy the encore of a joyous Everyone's a VIP and an heroic Ladyflash. I walk away from this gig, perhaps more so than the two before it, knowing that I have to see them again. As often as possible. As soon as possible. 

Loop Festival, Brighton - 18 August 2007
I park my car in a side street near to the park where Loop is being held and wander down the road to get a pay and display ticket. While standing at the machine I glance up to see the entire band walking up on the other side of the road.  It's a little surreal and I wave a little hesitantly, as a couple of them spot me. I head down to the festival and meet up with some Brighton friends and it seems like a long wait, dodging rain showers, until the band take to the stage. Jamie and Kaori DJing from the back of an ice cream van certainly helps the time pass. There's a queue to get into the main tent where they're headlining and, once you're in, if you need to go out for any reason - beer/toilets etc, you have to join the queue again to get back in. Timing things just right we get down the front. There's something strange about seeing gigs under canvas - a weird airy atmosphere you don't get anywhere else and the hum of the expectant crowd fills the tent. The band arrive and it's pretty hectic from the start - there's a few technical problems, Ninja can't hear herself in the monitors, the crowd are chanting 'turn it up!' and there's a bit of aggro between a couple of blokes and a bouncer. Not the hometown gig I suspect the band had wished for but the tension gives the gig an extra edge and they play a tough, resilient and spectacular set. Defeated? They just won't be.

Get Loaded Festival, London - 26 August 2007
I'm not a massive fan of big outdoor festivals - especially when the door pressure is around £45 a day and you're really going only to see one band - but I manage to get a cheap and very last-minute ticket on eBay and make Horsham to Clapham Common in record time (55 minutes) to collect it. I catch the end of the abysmal Automatic's set, who, to add insult to injury, bring on Newton Faulkner to do a song with them. The common's dusty - hot under white clouds - and the place is packed with herberts. The Go! Team play good  but it's the usual festival sound, festival organisers kick out a couple of massive inflatable beach balls into the crowd (oh, what fun when you're trying to watch a band), time restrictions result in a shortened Ladyflash and I'm out of there and home in a time just outside my personal best. 

Album Chart TV Show, KoKo, London - 28 August 2007
Proof of Youth is out in a week and the band are recording three live tracks for the Channel 4 Album Chart Show. They play the new single Doing It Right, Keys To The City and a stunning Flashlight Fight in front of a crowd dominated by Athlete and Sugababes fans (the other two acts appearing tonight). Despite the TV-vibe, the mini-set is more rewarding than the entire Get Loaded experience and the band are razor sharp. They're all done and dusted by 7pm and I manage to maintain a low profile while they play, to avoid any further embarrassing Transmission-type moments. Hoorah.

HMV In-Store, London - 6 September 2007
The magnificent Proof of Youth is finally out and the band are doing an in-store gig and signing session in the Oxford Street HMV store tonight. This is the first of four Go! Team nights in a row for me (they're playing a mini tour for the new album  taking in London, Manchester and Glasgow over the next three nights) and with the new LP now out , I'm on a bit of a high as I'm sure the band are. They steam through a selection of stuff from both albums and despite the record-chain store atmos, it's great fun. I hear later that Fake ID is going to be debuted at the Electric Ballroom gig the next night - it's my current favourite track on the album so I'm looking forward to the gigs even more - if that were possible. The Memphis chaps ask me why I'm not queuing up to get anything signed - I mumble something about not doing autographs but actually I'm just a bit shy and afterwards I wish I had. I chat to Sam and Kaori briefly after it's all over - Kaori shows me her bandaged wrist injured following a car accident on the way to play Bestival at the weekend. I buy a Phyllis Dillon compilation and trek off home with The Wrath of Marcie stuck in my head.

Electric Ballroom, London - 7 September 2007
The 'lecky Ballroom seems to have got longer and thinner over the years and, by the time we get inside, the stage appears to be about a mile away and it's impossible to get anywhere near the front. The gig's been sold out for weeks and it's absolutely rammed. Still, no matter - everyone from front to back dances their asses off and it's not like you can't hear anything. They're flipping loud. The back projections look superb from a distance and give some of the heavier tunes like Grip Like A Vice and Flashlight Fight a more menacing look and feel. Fake ID and A Version Of Myself both get their debuts tonight and are both fantastic. Friends bring a young Australian chap along from work who's never heard The Go! Team before. Halfway through the second song he's jumping around like a madman and then disappears into the crowd only to surface an hour later a very dazed and very happy man. 

The Ritz, Manchester - 8 September 2007 
Tony Wilson died a month ago and on arriving in Manchester I head to the Hacienda Apartments with a heavy heart to add a small non-floral tribute to the many that already entwine the railings outside. I went to the Hac a couple of times and once spent the day there working for a band, so got to have a good nose around. A ridiculous and amazing place. And now it's an apartment block. Hero is not a word I'm particularly fond of but Tony Wilson was right up there for me - alongside John Peel, John McGeoch and Bill Hicks - all inspiringly unconventional and/or maverick geniuses. I get in early to check out support bands The Suzan - a great trashy Japanese garage band and Caribou (formerly Manitoba) who are hypnotic and engaging but ultimately a bit underwhelming. The Go! Team kickstart my spirits beyond belief tonight - Fake ID sounds brighter and faster than London and - blimey! - Ninja's playing drums! - I hadn't noticed that last night. I decide it's a new wave classic. A Version of Myself is as sweet and infectious as hell and a welcome break in amongst the onslaught of their otherwise (literally) bruising set. Ninja declares that crowds in the north are more up for it than their soft southern counterparts but I don't agree - at least not in earshot of the manic Mancs surrounding me, who are indeed on top form. I've been to a lot of gigs over the years but tonight I saw something I've never seen before. No sooner have the band come off stage than a couple of them come out and join the 1500 capacity crowd as they leave the building, chatting with folks along the way. I add two new names to my heroes list.

ABC, Glasgow - 9 September 2007
Someone asked me during the week of these gigs why I go to see The Go! Team so often. There's a few answers to that. One is that I genuinely think their the greatest band in the world and that every time they play live I feel compelled to be there - whether it's in Northampton or South Korea. And, although this may sound very pessimistic and/or the bleedin' obvious - bands are not around forever. So I go as often as I can - which in reality really isn't that much (I saw the band play live 20 times in 2007, so there were 345 nights that year that I wasn't seeing them...). The other main reason is that I love taking friends to see them and it gives me an opportunity to catch up with old gigging mates from all over the country and show some of them that there are still great bands around - bands doing something unique and mad and worthwhile and amazing. Bands with energy, integrity and imagination. Bands that aren't The View, The Enemy, The Oasis. And bands that aren't just rehashing the past. There are other good bands around, of course - but none anywhere near as great as The Go! Team. On this particular night though, it was actually an old friend who takes me to see them. My mate David worked, at the time, for a Scottish music promoter and when I mentioned I was coming up to Glasgow to see them, he kindly sorted us out passes. We meet up at King Tut's before heading up to the ABC and I decide to have a night off from the dancefloor and watch from the balcony. Unlike the previous two nights, Ninja stalks (rather than bounds) on to the stage - she glares towards the  crowd - and they go straight into Flashlight Fight. It's a super-serious entrance and it suits them - and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Watching their set, it was hard to imagine what songs they could possibly leave out now - every song sounded so crucial. How can they better this? I'm already looking forward to the third album.  After the gig we watch with some amusement as Ninja is escorted through the foyer by a minder into a waiting vehicle to a spontaneous round of applause from Go! Team fans hanging around the venue. We chat quickly to Ian, Jamie and Kaori afterwards but they look knackered so we leave them be. I have a 450 mile drive home tomorrow and need some kip. I get back to my hotel at midnight, get woken up at 3am by a monumental shag-fest going on next door and leave the hotel at 6am, after having had about four hours sleep. I drive home....carefully.

Loughborough University - 29 September 2007
My mate Eddie from Leeds comes down for this one. I arrive to find Uni staff franticly putting up posters for tonight's show anywhere they can stick them - mainly in the SU bar where they should have been all week - ridiculously late in the day to be doing it - and subsequently the gig is less than half full. We chat to Stew, the band's tour manager, before the gig and I blame the NME (the tour is billed as the NME Freshers Tour and most venues are universities) - I have no foundation for this - I just blame the NME for everything these days. Anyway the band remain outwardly unfazed and they play a blinding set - but it's really disappointing to see the venue so empty just because it wasn't promoted properly. Ian's guitar sound on Junior Kickstart sounds like a banshee in a wind tunnel - it's immense and hypnotising and I fear my mind will never be same again. The way he battles and blasts his guitar from side to side reminds me of Mathew Ashman in the original circa-1979 Antz. Afterward the gig Eddie and I nick a few posters from the bar for our bedroom walls. We are both grown men in our forties.

Cardiff University - 4 October 2007
I get out of work early and drive to Newport to collect an old mate John before heading off to Cardiff. I've known John for nearly 30 years and we were part of a big crowd of people who used to follow bands around in the early 80s. The main bands we were into were Bow Wow Wow, The Clash, Killing Joke, Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees and early Adam And The Antz. Many bands had 'crews' - big groups of fans who would literally go to every gig on a tour, hitching around the country and sleeping rough just to get to the next gig.  Some of us saw some bands over 100 times (although my personal best was only 96). It's been a while since we've been to a gig together and we reminisce a lot. Cardiff Uni is a great venue - good clubby atmosphere, the gig's superb and John's blown away and amazed at the sprint-swaps the band do to exchange instruments between songs. The crowd's well into it and we both agree that if The Go! Team had existed in the early 80s they would have had a massive crew for sure.  

Warwick University, Coventry - 5 October 2007
I leave John's around 2pm and drive to Warwick University. The place is like a mini-city ('Little Croydon' perhaps they should call it). The campus has a main street (with traffic lights and bus lanes), a church, leisure complex, library, supermarket and gig venue. Everywhere's new, angular, white. After I park the car in a multi-storey (it is bloody Croydon after all!) I track down the venue. Due to the layout of the place I'm able to watch the band soundcheck from the upstairs balcony bar but feel a bit awkward so I go shopping in the surreal campus supermarket instead. Eddie comes down from Leeds again and, after we have a quick chat outside the venue with Chi (about Walthamstow!), we head in to check-out support bands Operator Please and The Satin Peaches - both of which are dull as dishwater. I blame the NME (again). At around 9.30pm we head up to the balcony from where we can see the band waiting to come on and they're bouncing off the walls with energy and anticipation. The small dancefloor is rammed by the time The Go! Team run on to the equally tiny stage and the band have complete control of the crowd for 80 minutes. For reasons I won't go into, the version of Fake ID they play tonight is extra special and the whole gig is fantastic. Eddie and I bid farewell, elated, and I do Coventry to Horsham in two hours. Result!

Bournemouth Old Fire Station - 9 October 2007
The penultimate date of the NME Freshers tour - the club's tiny and I find myself a vantage point on one of the raised blocks at the side of the dancefloor cos I want to get some photos tonight. What I don't realise is that I'm right in line with one of the club's speaker stacks and the Go! Team are about to play what seems like one of their loudest shows EVER! Blimey, it's ear-splitting -  plus my position means that I'm only getting the top end and I find the only thing that helps is singing along to everything, so that the sound of my own voice in my ears provides some bass to counteract the treble-heavy barrage coming from the speakers. In doing so, Ninja catches me doing the 'there's no excuse not to dance' ad-lib bit in Ladyflash and may have sussed that I'm the bloke that turns up 'here, there - everywhere' as she appears to cut me a sly wink during that bit of Huddle Formation. Or maybe I imagine it. Either way, she's obviously in a playful mood as she pulls a wicked trick during Ladyflash. She's dancing away, just before the song takes off at the end - and then suddenly drops down clutching her leg in agony. Kaori and others look on, concerned, as do many of the crowd - only for her to jump up a few seconds later, when the big chords come in, and go into some killer dance moves with an evil grin on her face. Ninja rules!

Astoria, London - 10 October 2007
Unlike Ninja's leg, my hearing is knackered for a week after Bournemouth so I wear earplugs for this one and my wife and I sit upstairs like the old fogies we are. This is the last night of the NME tour and the band jet off to the States the next day for a 14 date US tour. The gig's great and the crowd's really noisy but I think I'm all Go! Teamed-out for a little while - my usual end of tour downer. I get home and book a ticket to see them in Paris next month.

La Cigale, Paris - 10 November 2007
I get the Eurostar and arrive in Paris around 2pm. I'd booked my return ticket for around £55, a month in advance, which I thought was pretty reasonable. The venue is ten minutes walk from the Gare du Nord so I go and check it out before booking into my hotel. It's an old music hall and looks pretty cool (inside is even better). As I'm walking towards it, I look up to see non-other than Jarvis Cocker walking towards me. He's with his family so off-limits as far as I'm concerned. I walk by without saying anything to my 'fellow Englishman' abroad (it turns out he's not 'abroad' at all as he now lives in Paris). When I get to my hotel I check my phone but can't get a signal so I set the alarm on it to wake me in time to get the 8am Eurostar back to London the next morning. I leave the phone in the room and head off to a little bar around the side of La Cigale. On my way I bump into Ian in the street and say a quick hello. The gig is a four-band travelling tour with The Gossip headlining followed by The Go! Team, Jack Penate and Cajun Dance Party. By the time The Go! Team are on, down the front is complete mayhem with crowd surfers, stage divers (including Ian at the end of the set) - everyone's going absolutely bonkers  and it's the most punk rock I've seen The Go! Team play. The set's short and sweet and I emerge from the moshpit bruised, merry and on cloud nine. Which is when I see Jarvis again! Oh dear. With beery bravado, I now consider him to be fair game and bowl on over to tell him how great The Go! Team are and how much I loved Pulp and blah blah blah - and I suddenly realise, through exhaustion and beer, that I can hardly string more than two coherent words together. Jarvis nods and smiles politely and looks sympathetically at me but I can't help feeling it's probably this type of encounter he left England to escape. His wife kindly agrees to take a photo of us and then I apologise profusely and head to the bar and try and pretend that I hadn't just made a complete arse of myself. After The Gossip I head out to a bar with some lovely Parisian Go! Team fans and get back to the hotel around 2am.

What I didn't do before going to sleep was check my phone alarm. While I'd been unsettling the King of Britpop and pogoing with half of Paris, my trusty old mobile had dedicated itself to trying to find a signal - and in doing so had committed cell phone suicide, the battery had completely emptied. I awake at 10am and, realising what's happened, get dressed in 8.5 seconds and run down to the station in the vain hope that the train had been delayed for some reason. It hadn't. Did you know that a single ticket from Paris to London, on the day of travel, is £185? No - neither did I. Bollocks! 

Bristol Academy - 23 February 2008
This is the first night of an 11-date Proof Of Youth 'refresher' tour that will take the band to several towns and cities they've not played before. I meet up with Mick, an old mate who moved to Bristol a few years ago, and we head off to meet up with some native friends for a surprise birthday meet-up for one of them. We're meant to meet in the pub next door to the Academy before we all go to the gig,  but our taxi's involved in an accident and we're late getting there. We race into the pub and bump into Jamie, Chi and Kaori - we're so stressed and in such a rush that I feel we're a bit short with them and I worry about it for the rest of the evening. The venue's great, really big and absolutely packed - and the atmosphere and gig are super-electric. Definitely one of my favourite Go! Team shows - the band seemed to have an extra edge of rock-steady confidence and composure that night - magnificent. We return to the pub after the gig and then crash (for the second time that day) back at Mick's. 

Southampton University - 24 February 2008
I drive from Bristol to Southampton and arrive way too early so go and see Juno at the cinema to pass the time. Last night catches up with me just before the band come on so I just watch from the back and pop the occasional Nurofen. Jamie's wearing the red T-shirt with the white G on it from one of their 2004 photo sessions and I wonder whether the rest of the band still have theirs. The gig passes in a flash and before I know it they're into the encores of Doing It Right and Keys To The City. Cambridge tomorrow so I drive home with the intention of getting some sleep and wind up watching the Oscars until dawn. Too much Go! Team stimulation. 

Cambridge Junction - 25 February 2008
I meet up with friends Kris and Andy from Stevenage who've seen The Go! Team a few times already and are regulars at The Junction. They don't recall seeing the place so packed for ages. The band  definitely seem much more assured this tour and it's another solid show. I have a quick chat with Matt & Ollie from Memphis before making an early departure and round off nearly 600 miles of driving in the last three days by getting a flat tyre two miles from home.

Oxford Academy - 4 March 2008
I get to the Academy in time to catch support band Screaming Tea Party. They're crazy noise mongers who do a lot of screaming but very little tea-partying (although the latter would prove difficult for the singer who's wearing a gas mask). It's fun, but if I'm going to have my ears mashed to a pulp I reserve the right to have The Go! Team do it. Strangely, tonight's gig is the quietest I think I've ever heard them (or is it just my hearing is really going). Again, the crowd's really up for it - it seems like the seven month gap between Proof of Youth being released and this tour has given everyone a chance to really get into the album proper and everyone's come along totally in love with it. And rightly so.

Duke of York's Cinema, Brighton - 14 March 2008
The Duke of York's cinema is a lovely old picturehouse in Brighton that shows movies you can't get to see at any of the corporate multiplexes. My wife and I were members there for a good few years and were very fond of the place. We saw movies like Y Tu Mama Tambien, Raising Victor Vargas and City Of God there when no one else around was showing them. They also sold enormous  home-made samosas and there's a bar too. What more could you ask for? This gig was a benefit to raise money for roof repairs and The Go! Team put on a whole night's worth of entertainment including a collage of 70s movie trailers by Bob Jaroc, the bands video/screen visuals guru, short films, a live set from the band plus DJ sets in the bar afterwards. It was a Friday night and the day before my birthday and I, along with twelve friends, had a superb night. For the first two or three songs the first few rows of the audience remained seated which was quite a peculiar sight but it didn't last long.  A brilliant evening and certainly the most memorable of Go! Team gigs I've been to. Think globally - act locally indeed. Hats off to the band for this one... 

Concorde 2, Brighton - 15 May 2008
...and I owe the band/management/crew big time for this one. The band played a low-key late show at an MTV/Gonzo afterparty as part of The Great Escape Festival (a three day music soiree spread across multiple venues in Brighton). You could only get in if you had an all-weekend wristband so they kindly stuck me down as the 'merchandise guy' and in I got - unintentionally walking straight into their dressing room. I chat briefly to Ian and the Memphis chaps and make a quick retreat to the club. The band come on at 1am with a dayglo backdrop and storm into a nine song set that, possibly for the first time ever, doesn't include Bottle Rocket or Ladyflash - and it matters not one jot! As great as those songs are, the seven songs they play off Proof of Youth, plus Huddle Formation and The Power Is On, are all on par with those early tracks and this was clearly a statement of intent to that effect. Afterwards Matt from Memphis invites me back to the dressing room and I chat with him, the band and their friends and am made to feel very welcome. This was really appreciated as I'd gone on my own. Outside, after the gig,  I'm talking to Ollie from Memphis when Ninja strolls out with her boyfriend. I mention to Ollie that I've never met her and he immediately introduces us. The first thing she mentions is Transmission!
 
Latitude Festival, Southwold - 18 July 2008
As I write this, it's exactly one year and 10 days since I last saw The Go! Team. Cold turkey doesn't even come close. The band have been busy abroad but have only played two UK mainland gigs since the Latitude Festival. Really I should have got my arse into gear and gone to one of the European festivals they've done this year but it hasn't happened. Latitude was, for a festival, a great show and Jose Piex (I hope that's right) who stood in for Jamie on bass did an amazing job - really phenomenal stuff! But if you'd told me it would be my last Go! Team gig for over a year I would have made more of it. That'll teach me to be complacent.

Sonic City Festival, De Kreun, Kortrijk, Belgium - 17 April 2010
I have to confess to never having heard of the town of Kortrijk until it appeared on The Go! Team's tour schedule about two months ago -  but a quick check on Googlemap and the end of a 20-month Go! Team-free stretch was suddenly in-sight. Without getting too melodramatic on your asses, a couple of events over the last eight months or so have taught me to really - properly - appreciate everything good life brings your way - so getting to see the band again had an extra-special edge to it this time round - not just because of the time that had elapsed since Latitude. I get to Kortrijk around 3pm expecting to find the subdued little town I'd visited on my laptop and  envisaging I'd be drinking a goldfish bowl-sized glass of Leffe in a quiet, sunny, gothic square within the hour. Ah - how wrong I was. The entire town had been invaded by an enormous sodding fun fair.  Each ride (many of which did look reasonably terrifying) had its own accompanying sound system banging out truly awful euro-house - with one exception - a tiny-tots' carousel which, every time I passed it, was revolving small numbers of delighted, giggling three-year-olds to the sound of 'Fuck You' by Lily Allen. I kid you not. They weren't the only ones giggling.  I get down to De Kreun  around 6pm and say hello to Jamie and Kaori who are hanging out with friends outside the venue in the sunshine. Jamie and I count our blessings that none of us chose to fly to Belgium - a couple of bands invited by Deerhoof to play this weekend have had to cancel due to the 'volca-no-fly zone' over parts of Europe (or 'The End of the World' if you're a Daily Mail reader). I go in and check out some of the bands who have made it - it's a great little venue and I get chatting to some lovely folks who work there and from Kindamusik.net who have come down from Rotterdam to do a mini-documentary about the weekend for their website. Around 9pm The Go! Team begin soundchecking and I watch from the back of the room as it starts to fill up. Last week I heard that the chance of any new songs being played tonight was 'unlikely'. Like everyone, I can't wait to hear their new stuff but I was so happy to be seeing the band again I really didn't mind - nothing was going to deter me from being here.  But as the band are soundchecking some of their samples, I hear one that I don't recognise. Now, I wouldn't claim to know every inch of every Go! Team track and I may have got this completely wrong in my head, but the clip I heard just didn't ring any bells - and then I start to wonder. Ten minutes later, after a touching introduction from a member of Deerhoof, The Go! Team are on and Ninja confirms almost straight away that we can expect 'a surprise' tonight - and five songs in, with virtually no introduction,  we get it. A brand new, fizzing, killer Go! Team gem - instantly addictive - Ninja at the controls, Kaori on bass - the whole band look super-confident about playing it for the first time and the crowd instantly takes to it....and before we know it, it's over!  I have to admit at this point to getting somewhat emotional midway through the track, so my recollections are fairly compromised to say the least - but there is something about everything they do that just GETS me, and this new song (whatever it may be called) is no exception - another absolute triumph and by the end of the song I'm ecstatic. Back on track, the other set highlights for me were a very fine Fake ID - all three girls on majestic form - and Ian's ferocious man vs. guitar battle during Flashlight Fight, that actually caused several members of the audience to literally take a few steps back for reasons of personal safety. The closing Titanic Vandalism  reminds us all that Iceland does not have the monopoly on volcanic activity this weekend, first encore Doing It Right reignites the crowd and final song Keys To The City sends us away with a beautifully sustained note of harmonic feedback ringing in our ears and the knowledge that we have all just been on a ride far more colourful and exhilarating than any fairground in the world could possibly offer - and one with a perfect soundtrack.

Oran Mor, Glasgow, Scotland, UK - 3 February 2011
Right - that's quite enough misty-eyed trips down memory lane. After an amazing 300 miles in four hours the last 150 took me another four hours, as one hell of a storm arrived in Scotland just as I did. With thunder and lightning strikes appropriately (but no T.O.R.N.A.D.O. arf!). Glasgow was gridlocked! Still nothing compared to the storm The Go! Team kicked up on stage later that night. I don't think I've ever seen them more ferocious and incendiary. Some great surprises too in amongst the 17 song set. Firstly - when I saw Sam retrieve his banjo and Ian grab his harmonica I was fully expecting Everyone's a VIP... what do I know?! What we got was an amazing version of Yosemite Theme - Ninja bounding from the back to the front to do the 'from the front to the back' bit. A magic moment. The Running Range was just incredible - and live,  it does the album version proud. Buy Nothing Day with Ninja and Kaori covering the main vocals and Ian (shock!) on backing vocals and drums was just magnificent. But perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was The Power Is On with Ninja getting totally old-school on our asses by replicating the original Thunder, Lightning, Strike vocal chants rather than the normal lyrics she's being doing since 2004. And it really worked. Aside from that, all the other new material, Secretary Song, Apollo Throwdown, Voice Yr Choice and T.O.R.N.A.D.O. were just sublime and old favourites Huddle Formation, Junior Kickstart, Bottle Rocket etc all sounded as urgent and addictive as ever, if not more so. The Go! Team always give it their all every time they play but that was some performance last night - and one reflected and appreciated admirably by the good people of Glasgow. Or to put it another way - they all went completely and utterly bonkers. My favourite Go! Team gig ever (Colchester Arts Centre) was, like the beautiful Oran Mor, in a converted church. Glasgow now sits comfortably alongside that show. If there is a God, he's obviously a Go! Team fan - and encourages storms of (ahem) biblical proportions. Long may they rain/rein.

Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK - 4 February 2011
And talking of rain,  I lost count of the number of times I got soaked yesterday in both Glasgow and Edinburgh. It lashed it down all day and all night in Scotland (how appropriate we should be in a venue called the Liquid Rooms as everyone there seemed to be as soaked as I was). Subsequently when I get an unexpected and forever-treasured opportunity to have my photo taken with Ninja upstairs at the club, I have to apologise for the soggy condition of my jacket which by that point had started to smell something like the fragrance of a wet dog. For the second time this week I forget to ask Ninja about the fantastic single she did with Rinôçérôse and why it didn't seem to come out, when it thoroughly deserved to be a great big hit. Anyway... onto the gig  - the same superb set as Glasgow - slightly less bonkers than Oran Mor - the stage at the Liquid Rooms is really high and according to Ninja it was really slippery so that meant she really had to be real careful with her dancing - but the gig's still stunning on so many levels. Alongside choice cuts from the first two albums  we're spoilt for choice with Voice Yr Choice, Secretary Song, Apollo Throwdown, T.O.R.N.A.D.O., Ready To Go Steady, Buy Nothing Day and set highlights The Running Range and Yosemite Theme. A more devastatingly diverse band out there?  No, didn't think so. Although I didn't see him, Stew Talbot, the band's tour manager between 2004 and 2008 was in attendance and the band touchingly dedicated a song to him. With a 460 mile home run to look forward to I leave immediately after Titanic Vandalism, the last track of the three song encore, and back out into the rain. Still bathed in the eternal sunshine of the peerless Go! Team, I don't feel a drop.

Heaven, London, UK - 8 February 2011
'Underneath The Arches' at Charing Cross, Heaven is heaving. A sold-out show in the subterranean cavern of London's legendary gay nightclub where touts are selling tickets outside for £40 and inside the capacity crowd are privy to an extraordinary explosive set that  outdoes last week's chaotic Glasgow gig in terms of volume and mayhem by a mile. My sister and her boyfriend come along for the ride and although both are relatively new to the band,  both were instantly hooked by the sheer power and diversity of the set. Highlight of the night was undoubtedly  the spontaneous audience reprise of the 'Yeah Yeah Yeah' refrain of Ladyflash after the song had finished. Ian picked up the beat behind the drum the kit to accompany the crowd while Ninja added in some extra, seductive dance moves silhouetted with her back to the audience. It's an unexpected response from the crowd - one that takes the band by surprise and it's a really lovely moment. Who said London crowds were aloof and hard to please? As David Lynch once wrote: "In Heaven, everything is fine. You got your good thing and I got mine." The Go! Team are a very 'good thing' indeed and this gig will be hard to 'erase' from anyone's 'head' for a very long time.

Cambridge Junction, UK - 9 February 2011
Can't believe it's been three years since my friend Andy and I were both here for the last Go! Team tour - and here we are again. And I'm so glad we are because tonight's gig is really something - and that something is the sound. It's not incredibly loud (we had that in Heaven last night!) but the balance, the sharpness - it's astounding - something akin to listening to the gig wearing stereo headphones. It's stunning - and coupled with our perfect vantage point right at the front of the stage provides us with the perfect Go! Team gig. For several songs a chap in his 60s is grooving away next to me - and looking down the line of folks pressed against the barrier at the front I spy a kid who can be no more than ten or eleven. How wonderful is that!. The Go! Team cross so many boundaries in both their music and their fan base. By the end of the gig the guy in his 60s (who apparently is celebrating his 67th birthday tonight) is bare-chested and swinging his shirt around his head in wild abandon. And who can blame him. If The Go! Team are still going in 20 years time I'll be doing much the same thing I'm sure (I'll need to lose a few pounds first though). The set list is the same as Heaven - until they reach the final song of the main set when Ninja announces a Go! Team first - and they debut, impeccably, what is my favourite track from Rolling Blackouts - namely Back Like 8 Track. I know it sounds a bit daft but I can't hear this song in any shape or form without getting very emotional through the second half and tonight is no exception. But I manage not to blub on the shoulder of the topless elderly gentleman now going completely apeshit down the front. Another very memorable show. If I make it to my late 60s, February 2011 will one  month I'll have no problems remembering.    
 
Anson Rooms, Bristol, UK - 11 February 2011
I meet up with my very good friend John from Wales. John and I have been gigging buddies for 31 years and half-way through the show tonight we both realise we were both in this very same hall together for a gig in 1984! And (again) here we are again. Lovely! The gig is another glorious rerun through the band's excellent trilogy of albums but with the obvious emphasis on their finest to date - and hoorah! - we get Back Like 8 Track again - although it's The Running Range that truly kicks our collective butts tonight. After the show Chi kindly invites me backstage - I get to chat to the band, and meet some of their crew and friends (including Kid Carpet!)  for an hour or so - and Chi and Jamie get everyone to sign my copy of the US pressing of Buy Nothing Day 7" for which I am eternally grateful. I realised during the week that I didn't have any signed records by the band and being the total fanboy that I am I couldn't help but ask, although felt somewhat shy about doing so. From the few times I've met them it is very obvious that The Go! Team are a very genuine, sweet, grounded, down to earth group of people  - but alongside those admirable traits there lies a band with truly incredible energy, talent and synergy - and I hold them in such high regard for who they are,  what they do and the way they do it. For that reason I'm afraid I will always remain starstuck in their presence. And it's a great place to be.    

Academy, Oxford, UK - 15 February 2011
My mum always envisaged me going to an academy at Oxford. I don't think this was quite what she had in mind. A few days before this gig a chap called Nick West got in contact with me through this site. It became quite obvious, pretty quickly, that we shared a lot of the same music tastes outside of The Go! Team (Public Image Limited being one band in particular). As his wife couldn't go to the gig and I was going on my own we made a tentative arrangement to say hello/meet up at the gig. Nick spots me soon after I arrive and we spend an excellent evening talking about our many years of gigging and shared love of punk/new wave. We're both in out forties and Nick's a little bit older than me which means he started gigging that bit earlier and regales me with accounts of seeing Joy Division amongst others. Turns out we have also attended several of the same Go! Team gigs too (Reading Fez, Southampton Uni...) - basically we got on like the proverbial house on fire and he was  excellent company. I hope we get the chance to meet up at future Team events - cheers Nick. And talking of houses on fire, The Go! Team take to the stage bang on time and proceed to scorch through their now searingly-tight set at breakneck speed and with incredible force. The sound once again is incredible - loads of base, Ninja's vocals nice and high in the mix - everything balanced. Only Junior Kickstart  gets really messy and that's just the way we like it. The crowd are, to begin with, completely rigid. It's pretty weird and even Ninja comments on it. Whether it's the pounding shockwaves of T.O.R.N.A.D.O. or the quite captivating beauty of Ninja commanding the limelight - or a combination of both - I just don't know. But, of course, by the end of the set everyone in the house is going completely nuts. As they always do. The Go! Team's ability to engage, amuse, amaze, arouse, and assert themselves without ever compromising is  a rare thing indeed - but they're never anything less than  focussed, relentless and victorious. I remain in total awe of their power and energy. Mum - I may not have ended up at Oxford in the way you'd hoped but I am attending 'class' on a regular basis.

Concorde 2, Brighton, UK - 16 February 2011
When I heard The Go! Team were playing the Concorde 2 I was really surprised. A hometown gig and all, I thought they'd be playing somewhere bigger. So I was equally surprised that  once I got into the venue, it seemed to have got a whole lot bigger. Don't know if it's my poor memory or whether they have actually extended it in some way - but it looked bloody enormous, particularly when completely packed - which it was,  as it had sold out on the night. My wife Jo (recently dubbed 'The Go! Team Widow' by friends for obvious reasons) makes a rare trip out to a Go! Team gig and gets to briefly meet, Jamie, Chi, Kaori and Sam and doesn't shout at anyone for robbing her of her husband for days on end. Perhaps she's glad to get rid of me (damn I never thought about that). She's actually quite chuffed to meet them all but doesn't let on. Loads of friends come along for this one and a lot of drinking is undertaken as I have the rare luxury of getting driven to this gig. The set's terrific - I watch most of it from towards the back but by the time they're ready to go Back Like 8 Track I sprint down the front and join the dancing, moshing masses and see out the encores of Junior Kickstart, Apollo Throwdown and Keys To The City down there too. But  unfortunately  this will be the last time. My dancing days are now over. A year or so ago I had to have an operation on my back - fairly minor - but a recent x-ray has shown up that I have arthritis in my lower spine and pelvis and, while it's not too far progressed (and pain killing injections will help) I'm afraid, in future, when Ninja commands the audience to do the jumping bit before Keys To The City, I'll be a 'jumping on the inside' sort of guy. And I will now have a legitimate excuse 'not to dance' - which, believe me,  hurts me more than my back ever will. Anyway - a well-deserved homecoming for the band and another great gig in, what is turning out to be, a stunning tour. My friend Mark asked me at the end of the gig how many times I've seen them play live now. The only answer I can give him is 'not enough'. What a stupid reply. Read on...

The Cockpit, Leeds, UK - 18 February 2011
Prologue: I'm a spoilt bastard! No really. On the drive up to Leeds today I was feeling a bit melancholy about only having three more Go! Team gigs I can get to on this tour. And then I started thinking about a few e-mails I've received recently from  big Go! Team fans dotted around the world who, due to their geographical location, are unlikely to be able to see the band play live. It's nobody's fault that that situation exists and I genuinely feel for their predicament. So I'm sat here in my hotel room in Leeds about to go to my 40th Go! Team gig and not necessarily feeling guilty, but certainly I have no right to feel in anyway melancholy. I'm feeling extremely grateful, lucky and like I said - a spoilt bastard. A lesson learnt.

The gig: Some Go! Team gigs are invigorating, some intense, some chaotic, some just pure joy. Tonight's falls comfortably in the latter category. A really great crowd and an uplifting performance. Ian's on-stage presence was incredibly and mesmerisingly  intense tonight. A man possessed (with greatness).  Highlights - a crushing Flashlight Fight, a brilliant Ready To Go Steady....oh hell, the whole God damn thing was ace.  Lovely to get together with my friend Eddie again (thanks for the lift matey) and great to meet up with many other Go! Team fans and some of the band after the gig. Same great set - it was me who requested 'Chimp In A Toga' (and you won't get rid of me 'til you play it! hee hee). Lovely to meet Stu & friend and Paul & partner (thanks for letting me add you to the fans gallery Paul). Nice one Leeds!  

Academy 2, Manchester, UK - 19 February 2011
Got woken up by a text at 8.30am from my wife to let me know there had been snow overnight in Manchester. It was about half an hour later I opened the curtains to find there'd been snow in Leeds too. Loads of it. Great - but not much fun playing in it on your own so I just dossed around in the hotel 'til about 3pm and then headed off to Manchester - where, incidentally, there was no snow whatsoever.

I forgot to mention at the beginning of this particular tour's entries that myself and many of my friends have a load of gigging superstitions. I won't bore you with them all (and there are loads) but  for example - you must never, on any account, play music by the band you're going to see on the way to their gig. Subsequently the journeys to Scotland, Leeds, Bristol and back etc have all been  Go! Team-free events. I absolutely love driving long distances as it gives me some precious time to go through my album collection on my iPod and also check out some new stuff and audio books. I find I have less and less time these days to listen to music so I really value these journeys. A quick run down of some of the on-the-road playlists so far have been both the Dan Le Sac/Scroobius Pip albums (genius), The Who - Live at Leeds (on the way to Leeds, of course) the new PJ Harvey and Joy Formidable records, Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro, The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette, The Slits - Cut (the deluxe double reissue) and the YumiYumi album. See, it's not all Go! Team around here. Not quite.

Literally just as I'm writing this, in the lobby of Manchester University, Ninja just stopped for a quick chat and I got the chance to ask her a couple of questions - firstly about the apparent  disappearance of the excellent Rinôçérôse single 'Time Machine' (featuring Ninja on vocals) which she put down to record company politics/disintegration. And secondly the lyrics to Yosemite Theme. A few people have asked me what the last bit of the 'From the front to the back to the...' is. I'd always assumed it was '...to the seaside south' (i.e. Brighton?) which Ninja confirms although she admitted to sometimes changing it slightly. Anyway - August and Paul - I hope that answers your question - and thanks to Ninja for answering my quick-fire mini quiz when she really just wanted to go and eat. Now I'm listening to the band soundchecking Grip Like A Vice and the music echoing around the building sounds fantastic and reminds me of the same scenario as Transmission (see above). Grip Like A Vice has been a killer track over these recent gigs and the crowds have been all over it. Such a great song. Now they're soundchecking Voice Yr Choice and Yosemite Theme...lovely.        

I was expecting this to be a great gig. Everyone of the nine gigs I've been to so far on this tour have been incredible in different ways. One consistently great element of each night has been the sound. Different from previous tours - fuller, bassier, more intricate in certain ways. But nothing I heard at those nine gigs could prepare me for the opening few seconds of T.O.R.N.A.D.O. tonight. In those first 15 seconds or so, before Ninja bounds on to the stage (to an incredible reception), the sound is the heaviest, most powerful onslaught I have ever heard from any band, live. The 1000 or so members of the audience packed into the cavernous hall are hit head-on by this audio freight train packed with explosives that causes many people to turn and look at each other as if to say 'holy shit - are you hearing what I'm hearing?'. It's absolutely incredible. And in those few seconds The Go! Team ensure they have the entire audience captivated for the next 75 minutes. Not only does the sound maintain its explosive bombardment for the duration of the gig but the band's performance - every one of Ninja's killer dance moves, every one of Sam's and Ian's dynamic airborne guitar attacks, every one of Jamie's pumping bass lines, every one of the girls' vocals - be they singing, rapping, harmonies, count-ins, that form part of a set of songs so diverse and ferocious and incendiary and visceral - that the by the half way point of the gig the capacity crowd is fully aware that they are witnessing something very special indeed. And at this point I am aware that I'm not only watching the best Go! Team show  I've ever seen but the best gig I've ever seen. By the end I am at a loss for words. But not at a loss for thoughts. The gig races around my head throughout the four hour drive home - over and over - and I try to work out why they are not headlining the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury this year, why they are not number one in the charts with Buy Nothing Day and Rolling Blackouts, why they are not the biggest band in the world. Because they are certainly the best - and tonight they just proved it. Twenty nine years ago I saw The Clash play a monumentally diverse powerhouse of a gig that, for me, has always stood head and shoulders above anything else I've ever seen. Tonight The Go! Team were standing on their shoulders - and leaping off, with their trademark catapult jumps, straight into a place in my heart previously occupied by Strummer and co.  And regardless of what the future holds,  they'll  remain  there for a very long time.

Academy 2, Leicester, UK - 26 February 2011
My last gig of the tour but I'm not too down about it. The last month has been great in so many different respects it would be churlish and self-indulgent to be in any way depressed. However I am hit early on by a very strange feeling once inside the venue. If you read my diary entry for the Summer Sundae Festival in Leicester last year - well firstly - thank you - and secondly you will recall I mentioned going to see a band at Leicester University in 1982. Well it just so happens that the three Leicester Academy venues are all based at Leicester University and Academy 2, where the band are playing tonight, is the very same hall I was standing in nearly 29 years ago. It hits me the moment I walk in and it brings back a ton of memories and, as I said , a strange feeling, kind of de-ja-vu meets nostalgia. Anyway - enough about the past. Tonight's gig is a little flat - not from the band-perspective, who are as up for it as ever, but the crowd is very quiet and while the room is reasonably full there is quite a lot of space and things never really take-off as they have at all the others gigs I've been too. Saying that, there's a lot of happy faces at the end of the show. Set highlight had to be the incredible quick thinking Ninja who did her usual pre-song banter for The Power Is On only for the band to launch into Bottle Rocket. I got the giggles - but fair play to Ninja - she wasn't phased and didn't miss a beat coming in on the start. After the show Chi escorts me backstage and presents me with (in return for a small gift I'd passed on to her earlier in the tour) a huge roll of 15 beautiful (and some very rare) Go! Team posters that she had collected on her worldwide travels with the band over the last 8 years. I was absolutely blown away (thank you Chi!). Ninja then takes some photos of me with Jamie, Chi and Kaori and I manage to stand on Jamie's foot not once but twice. This is absolutely no way to treat your favourite band - sorry Jamie. After this, Chi leads me on to the now empty stage and takes my photo standing in the middle of where the band had played an hour earlier, with my back to the empty hall. It's a lovely moment and somehow a fitting way to finish the tour for me. I hang around and chat to the band for a while and manage to forget, again, the many things I wanted to chat to them about (starstruck still)... and then I depart with a large roll of posters under my arm and an even larger smile on my face.

Bowery Ballroom, New York, USA - 12 April 2011
It's been 10 years since I last spent time in New York but having hung out there a lot in the past I know the place like the back of my hand and it was nice spending a day wandering around in the rain visiting old haunts. Sadly haunting, throughout the day, was the missing sight of the twin towers - you used to be able to see the tops of them from just about everywhere. I don't know how the city and its people have recovered from that day - or whether they even have - but it's a tough and resilient place and its energy remains in truly great shape. I NY - more than just a T-Shirt. Around 5pm I wander past the Bowery Ballroom and stop to get a quick photo of the venue. Just as I'm doing so, the huge metal entrance door opens and out pops Kaori - a great photo opportunity which she kindly obliges to. We have a quick chat before I head off to meet up with my friend Yarrow and her partner David at my favourite NY restaurant, Lombardi's on Spring Street in Little Italy (the best Pizza in the world - no really) and we eat way too much before heading back to the Bowery. It's smaller than I remember (Supergrass being the last band I saw here in around 2000) but it's a sell-out and packed. We check out support band Frankie Rose, a pretty decent mainly female band that remind me of early Bunnymen. In between bands a lovely chap called Brian bowls over for a chat - we'd been in contact through Twitter and agreed to try and meet up but jet lag had, by that point,  got the better of me and it was only when he introduced himself that my brain started functioning again (sorry Brian). Anyway, turns out Brian is originally from Northern Ireland but now lives just outside New York. We agreed to meet up again at the Brooklyn Bowl in four days time which sadly doesn't happen but it was great to meet him, albeit briefly. Cheers Brian! Not long after The Go! Team take to the stage and the place goes potty. You can tell the band have been sorely missed here and the reception and enthusiasm they receive is overwhelming. Yarrow, David and I watch from the balcony. My friends have never seen them before and are genuinely blown away by their performance. Everyone in the room, from the front to the back, is dancing and it's great to watch from above.  The set is pretty much the same as that played on the UK tour - a whole bunch of Rolling Blackouts tunes mixed in with selected stuff from the first two albums. It strikes me again how amazing it is that they can easily afford to leave out tracks as great as Fake ID, Doing It Right, The Wrath of Marcie, Everyone's a VIP, A Version of Myself, The Ice Storm, We Just Won't Be Defeated and so on. Making a point about being jet-lagged, Ninja returns for the encore of Apollo Throwdown and Keys To The City wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms and after the usual mass bundle at the end of the song is jokingly carried off stage by Sam and Jamie (this will happen again later in the week under less humorous circumstances - more on that later). After the show Chi kindly sorts us out passes and we say a quick hello to everyone although, unlike most bands, they're all busy packing up their own gear and not lording it up backstage. I've said it before but they're a really down to earth bunch of folks - and work incredibly hard on-stage - even when the audience has gone home. And then we go home, back to Harrison, New Jersey through an incredible thunderstorm as loud, bright and intense as the Bowery was an hour earlier.

9.30 Club, Washington DC, USA - 13 April 2011
Yarrow kindly gives me a lift to the Amtrak Station in Newark and I get into Washington around 4pm. I arrive at the 9.30 Club about 7.30pm (two hours early?) and immediately realise I have no ID on me. No passport, no credit card - nothing. This meant that a) I couldn't prove who I was for the guest list and b) even if I could get in, I couldn't get a drink at the bar despite being a 44 year old bloke with a greying beard. Having an English accent helped and after a chat with a very helpful bouncer and manager, both issues were eventually resolved. In fact the drinking thing wasn't an issue as I'd managed to twist my ankle in NYC and was taking really strong painkillers - so despite the fact they had Sierra Nevada on draught, I had to abstain. When I explained about my foot I have to say I was treated like royalty, given my own VIP balcony centre-stage and plied with gorgeous cinnamon and vanilla coffee from an equally gorgeous girl. Not only that but when I explained to the club's merchandise guy, a lovely chap named Massoud Adibpour, of my love for all things 'Go! Team' he immediately hopped over the counter and came back with a poster for the gig for me. Thanks Massoud! So... great staff and a beautiful venue! From the outside it looked like a flat-roofed warehouse in a once-dodgy part of DC but inside was just amazing - a huge, slightly art-deco-style venue with an enormous stage, equally large and very good sound (although I'm sure Tommy, the Go! Team's soundman had a good hand in that - my balcony was literally vibrating at times) and a fantastic, friendly  and, crucially. very mixed-race crowd. So great to see faces other than white indie kids at Go! Team gigs. Ninja even spotted a gang of girls in traditional African clothes down the front and when she asked where they were from she was delighted to discover they were from her native Nigeria. Fantastic! I got talking to a couple of African-American kids with Go! Team T-shirts after the show and was equally delighted to find out they were regular visitors to Titanic Fandalism, as were many others I spoke to over the week. Many more people in the US seemed to know about the site than those I spoke to in the UK and I have no idea why - but was very chuffed. A storming set - everyone in the place went crazy and all in all I thought it was the best gig of the week from every possible perspective - and probably the best venue I've ever been to for all the above reasons. The 9.30 Club definitely knows what time it is.  

Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia, USA - 14 April 2011
After some touristy Washington site-seeing I get the Amtrak to Philly.  If the US has the equivalent of Camden Lock in London,  anywhere within its giant mass, it's South Street, Philadelphia. Tattoo parlours, faux-punk boutiques, trendy jewellery shops and bars, bikers, skaters, hip-hop kids, goths, music blaring from every shop doorway and on a lovely sunny afternoon it's a nice place to be. Slap bang in the middle of all this is the Theatre of Living Arts. But this isn't where I'm heading - not right now at least. I'm going to Mexico. Well, Las Bugambilias to be precise - a truly authentic, tiny, family-run Mexican restaurant at the end of South Street. I'm afraid I'm a complete snob when it comes to Mexican food. The awful Tex-Mex establishments serving Sol & Corona and Burritos & Fajitas etc we get in the UK have very little to do with proper home-cooked Mexican food. On the US east coast there aren't too many places either to be honest. Zarella's in New York is the best I've been to. Until today. Las Bugambilias is astounding. Tostados/Sopes Veracruzanos to start, Molcajete Arrachera for main course plus excellent Margaritas and Negra Modelo beer served with home-made Tortillas chips, a kick-ass Habanero dip and all dished up with incredible presentation. By the end of the meal I'm virtually on my knees begging them to open a restaurant in the UK. I say virtually because if I had gone down on my knees I don't think I would have got up again. After eating this lot I could barely move.

Anyway, that's enough about my forthcoming coronary problems. Back to The Go! Team. The Theatre of Living Arts is a medium sized venue, maybe 800 and, unlike my stomach, is only about half-full. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that the pint of beer I bought at the TLA bar cost me $11. Ridiculous! Nonetheless the band play a blinder and the crowd make enough noise in appreciation after each song that the place at least sounded full. Despite my foot and over-eating I go down the front and dance and sing throughout the entire set and everything sounds great (except me of course). On a few of these dates the band have started doing little impromptu jams between songs. Tonight Ian and Jamie at one point go into a nice drum and bass groove that reminds me a little of White Lines and I wonder if this could one day turn into a fully-fledged Go! Team track. I hope so. Even better is the little jam that the band do based around Kaori's excellent steel drums just before Back Like 8 Track each night - which Ninja and the crowd can't resist dancing to. A couple of nights I wish they'd just keep the jam going and see where it leads, it's so infectious. BL8T closes the set in fine style with Ninja introducing the band in turn towards the end of the track - but always getting the biggest cheer herself. She really is an amazing front person.  On my way out of the venue a chap called Chris approaches me and asks if I'm the bloke who does Titanic Fandalism. Once again I'm quite taken aback that the site does seem to be getting out there and that someone has recognised me. We had a nice but brief chat and hoped to meet up at Brooklyn although unfortunately that doesn't happen either. A 400 mile train journey to Boston looms tomorrow so an early start means an early night and I head off back to the hotel straight after the gig.

Paradise Club, Boston, USA - 15 April 2011
My 9.20am train from 30th Street Station is an hour late and the ride to Boston ends up taking eight hours instead of the planned six. But no worries - Amtrak really is a great and cheap way to travel and all the seats have got power sockets for laptops and iPhones so I just chill out, watch some movies and listen to a bunch of albums while the east coast scenery flashes by. It's my last hotel of the tour so decide to do things in relative style and book a room at the Hilton. Actually I have my sister to thank for this (thanks Aby - you're a star). I get to the club in time to catch Dom for the third night in a row. They're a basic guitary band from Massachusetts  - nothing special but they're OK and have a big Boston following in tonight. I go in search of the band's dressing room just to say a quick 'hello' but they're all out for dinner, all except Ninja who's sorting out her washing in a small utility room (what a missed photo opportunity!). We say a quick hello and I go and find a little private bit of balcony next to the sound desk overlooking the stage which I figure will be great for getting some good photos tonight. Just before the band take to the stage I notice Sam trying to fix up a small camcorder on to the mixing desk to record tonight's show. When he spots me he asks if I'll do the honours - and an honour it was. I ended up videoing all the new tracks from the balcony and it was a really enjoyable experience seeing the band through a lens - trying to film all the relevant bits of each member's parts of the songs as well as taking in the whole stage/gig. The crowd were brilliant tonight - so in to it - and the band's performance is as powerful and intense as it's been all week. I got quite into the filming aspect of it  and as I got more confident I attempted a few more interesting shots and close-ups but had one slightly embarrassing moment when I tried to do an arty zoom-in on the band's 'Go!' bass drum skin only for Ninja to walk directly in front of it, resulting in a close up of her breasts which I would like to make clear was not my intention. Honest!

After the gig I return the camera to Sam in their dressing room. The band look exhausted but Chi chats to me and, as always, makes me feel very welcome - and slowly the rest of the band emerge and Sam, Jamie, Chi and Tommy (their soundman) all let me take their photos for this site. We all chat until around 1am and then I say my goodbyes and get a taxi back to the hotel.

Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, New York, USA - 16 April 2011
Today was Record Store Day and I have most of it to spend in Boston, so go to Newbury Comics on Newbury Street (where funnily enough Dom are playing an in-store gig when I arrive) and pick up a copy of The Go! Team's limited edition remixes 12" (in lovely blue vinyl) and then go to a great subterranean Thai restaurant called Chilli Duck on Boyston Street and eat way too much (again) before getting the 16.40 Amtrak to New York. I get in to NY around 9pm and walk straight out of Penn Street Station into a monsoon - it takes me 45 minutes to get a cab to Brooklyn by which time I'm drenched. Now, I'm normally pretty low key about following the band but when I got to the Brooklyn Bowl there was such chaos outside with people queuing in the torrential rain - and being soaked already I saw an open side door with a bouncer standing just inside it and had an idea. Again using my best English accent I told a slight white lie, that I was 'with the band' and needed to get inside and could verify that I was on the guest list. Bless him - he called another security guy who whisked me straight through the crowd, into the foyer and said to the chap behind the desk 'Get this guy inside now!'. He checked me off the list and I was suddenly in! Normally I would never dream of doing such a thing and  I did (and do) feel guilty about it - but I genuinely needed to change my clothes as I was soaked to the skin and after 5000 miles following the band that week I just thought 'sod it'. But huge thanks to the Brooklyn Bowl staff - they were excellent and accommodating and I really appreciated their help.  After a change of clothes in the gents, I wandered into the amazing warehouse of the Brooklyn Bowl - a bowling alley, 600 capacity gig venue, bar and restaurant all in one - quite literally in the same space. An amazing place. All week the band had had a mix tape on, pre-show, (Aphex Twin, Roxanne Shante, DJ Shadow, De La Soul, Northern Soul etc) but tonight the club had its own DJ and the bloke was a man after my own heart - Bow Wow Wow: C30, C60, C90, Go; Siouxsie & The Banshees: Hong Kong Garden; The Damned: Smash It Up; The Buzzcocks, The Smiths....many of my favourite records back to back - and stuff you never hear in clubs - it was such a great surprise. Walking around the venue I spot a bloke wearing a Go! Team t-shirt - a guy called Lucky from Australia - again I'm delighted to find he knows about TF and I take his photo for the 'Fans' Gallery'. The band's soundman (a very sound man indeed) Tommy, kindly takes care of my rucksack behind the sound desk and Sam asks me to film the gig again from an excellent vantage point  at the side of the stage which I was more than happy to do - really nice to do something constructive for them. I hope it came out OK.  A brilliant midnight gig and a huge and ecstatic sold-out crowd.  Unfortunately the end of the gig was not so good. Following the mass band-bundle at the end of Keys To The City it became quickly obvious that Ninja had been injured. Sam immediately picked her up and whisked her behind the stage - initially she appeared unconscious but it soon became apparent she was having real trouble breathing and the club's excellent staff appeared to be right on the case straight away and she was taken off to hospital. My car was due to pick me up from the club at 2am to take me to the airport so I got out of everyone's way and departed on time, but was really worried about what I'd just witnessed. Thankfully I heard today that Ninja's doing OK and the band are now in California to do the final two gigs of their US tour. I got to Newark Airport at around 3am and dossed about until my flight home at 8am. I was fortunate enough to be upgraded to Business Class on the way out thanks to a friend who works at the airline I flew with. I was even more surprised to find myself upgraded to First Class for the journey home, although ended up sleeping for much of it.

First class was a lovely way to finish off an amazing week, The band, however, remain In a class of their own and I remain in total awe. Thank you (once again) Go! Team. See you in the summer!

The Hop Farm Music Festival, Tonbridge, Kent, UK - 3 July 2011
I'd been preparing myself for this one for weeks. Preparing myself for the torture, the pain and the depression that was to come. Preparing myself for an afternoon of absolute hell. Preparing myself for the knowledge that The Go! Team were playing a mere 42 miles down the road and I WASN'T GOING TO BE THERE!!! Yep, I had decided, reluctantly that, as much as I love them, I can't actually go to every single gig they play, as much as I'd love to. I can't complain either, can I? I've been lucky to have seen them as many times as I have.  But as fun as festival are - they're really annoying things if you happen to follow a particular band. This is mainly down to ticket prices and/or the fact that some festivals are weekend tickets only. Don't get me wrong - I think festivals are great for bands, exposing them to wider audiences, getting TV coverage etc and great for folks who want to check out a load of bands in one go - but for a certain section of  fans they're quite frankly the work of Satan. Well OK, just a pain in the backside. Anyway...I felt I had to draw the line at some point,  somewhere and I was busy trying to work out what to do with my forthcoming Sunday afternoon of moping Morrissey-esque misery when an email came through. An email to say that I'd been allocated a place on the guestlist! and lo, the heavens did open, angels with trumpets appeared and I was bathed in a golden shaft of light that.....oh, you get the picture - I was absolutely chuffed!  And very grateful. Thank you Memphis Industries and thank you Go! Team.

And so to a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon in the garden of England. Hop Farm  is a medium-sized music festival set just outside of Tunbridge Wells and today's line-up included Go! Team label mates Dutch Uncles and headliner Prince. It was the former I checked out first, playing on the Bread and Roses stage. I've been listening to their album for a while and was surprised how powerful they are live, with razor sharp chops and a quirky air about them that puts me in mind of The Cardiacs, Magazine, That Petrol Emotion and Levitation all rolled into one. Which is a very good thing indeed. Unfortunately I only get to check out half their set as The Go! Team are on any minute in 'The Big Tent' (before you ask, yes it is) and so I leg it over there and five minutes later a couple of thousand jaws drop as they kick-off with T.O.R.N.A.D.O. and then steam through their ten song set with a much more relaxed 'smiles all round' approach than I've seen them this year. This in-turn infects the massive crowd and results in huge appreciation after each track, not least after a magnificent 'The Power Is On'.  My own personal highlights are Apollo Throwdown and the sublime Secretary Song, both of which sound as box-fresh and sprightly as a brand new pair of  Chuck Taylor All Stars. Buy Nothing Day, however, is notable by it's absence. Time is tight at these things, I know,  but I really thought that this much-playlisted gem would be a festival essential. Still, we have the inspiring gospel-funk of The Running Range to keep us transfixed before the 'party starters' trash the place with a closing Keys To The City.

A couple of hours after the show I bump into various band members and crew heading towards the main stage to watch his Purpleness perform, by all accounts, an amazing two and a half hour set. I, on the other hand, have seen everything I came to see and I head home happy, and as I said, very grateful. The Go! Team - Nothing Compares To U.       

The Deer Shed Festival, Topcliffe, North Yorkshire, UK - 23 July 2011
Admittedly my seven year old son had been somewhat force-fed the first two Go! Team albums over the lat six years but subsequently had really got into tracks like Doing It Right, The Wrath of Marcie and Ladyflash. But being that bit older when Rolling Blackouts hit the streets, earlier this year, he totally and genuinely got it. With perhaps the exception of the title track and Back Like 8 Track my wife and I would regularly catch him humming Bust Out Brigade or Secretary Song or Buy Nothing Day. So when the band announced they were playing the kid-central Deer Shed festival, despite the 320 mile journey, we asked him whether he  was ready for his first gig. He was - and I was incredibly chuffed as to who it was going to be. And despite an agonising two month wait for both of us, suddenly he was meeting Chi and Kaori and Jamie - and on my shoulders, wearing his own Go! Team t-shirt (and ear-defenders!), watching the band storm into T.O.R.N.A.D.O. at very close range - and as completely transfixed and shell-shocked as I had been some five years earlier when I first saw them . So shell-shocked in fact that halfway through the set it all became too much for him and he clambered off my shoulders and sat between my feet staring at the floor for a couple of songs, just completely overwhelmed. Then suddenly he was climbing back on to his vantage point for Ladyflash and Apollo Throwdown and the set closing chaos of Keys To The City before they bounded off and he demounted and wandered through the departing crowd making sure everyone could see his t-shirt, as proud to be a fan of The Go! Team as his dad is.

Later on Chi very kindly got a copy of Buy Nothing Day, I'd bought for him, signed and she and Kaori came out and presented it to him and we all got some photos together . I have to say it was a very emotional moment for me. I'm very grateful to The Go! Team and Memphis Industries for this perfect chance for him to see them. Deer Shed is a great and valuable  opportunity to inspire kids and introduce them to live music, as well as providing them with all the other events they put on for them over the weekend. I feel very lucky that my son was able to see his first ever gig under these circumstances - and to see a band as exhilarating and memorable as The Go! Team. I'm sure he'll never forget it. I certainly won't.

Truck Festival, Steventon, Oxfordshire, UK - 24 July 2011
My 50th Go! Team gig. I knew on the evening of the 3rd of March 2006 that I had witnessed something that literally had changed my life, there and then. And if you'd asked me on the way out of Koko in London that night - 'fancy seeing that band 50 times?' the answer would have been  'Hell YEAH!!'. And here I am on a gorgeous Sunday Summer's evening in Oxfordshire watching a magnificent Go! Team performance, as brilliant and exciting as the 49 I'd previously witnessed - and knowing that if someone had repeated that question to me at the end of their Truck set - the answer would be exactly the same. It's been a magical five years and as long as they continue, I shall be there as often as possible - dancing badly, getting the words wrong, in continued awe - and still ready to Go!  

Bingley Music Live Festival, Bingley, Yorkshire, UK - 2 September 2011
To quote Arcade Fire: 'I know a place where no cars go...'. Yes, I do too - it's called the M1 motorway on a Friday afternoon, when you're trying to get away somewhere on time. I can't really complain though can I?  I'm here too and therefore a small piece of the jigsaw of doom that is a 10 mile tailback that takes nearly two hours to clear. Trouble is, it's just 10 miles of a 260 mile journey for me - to see The Go! Team play a free gig tonight at the Bingley Music Fesival in Yorkshire - and there are times when I think to myself 'if this doesn't clear soon I'm not gonna make the band's 7.30pm stage time'. Which doesn't bear thinking about. So I sit and play 'No Cars Go' from Arcade Fire's fab 'Neon Bible' album over and over to  try and cheer myself up. It's one of my favourite songs in the world - euphoric, emotional, uplifting and bewilderingly well written - and eventually we start to move. Fortunately I continue to (ahem) 'Keep The Car Running' all the way to Bingley, but a total journey time of nearly seven hours? Not good. I do like driving long distances though (especially when there's a Go! Team show at the end of it). As I've said before in this diary, my family and work life is pretty full-on and, while I love them both dearly, to be able to just, now and again, take off in the car and play a bunch albums I've no-doubt neglected for too long is a very welcome treat.

I get to Bingley around 6pm and go and chill-out in the lovely VIP bar tent, marvel at the amazingly swish designer backstage toilets (when you stand at the urinals the spotlights above you start changing colours - somewhat disconcerting when it first happens and you suddenly think 'Aaaghh! - my pee's gone purple!!'. Sorry, too much information) and wait for my friends Anya and Eddie to arrive from Leeds. Not that I think of myself as a VIP in anyway, although everyone's a ...etc etc, but Chi kindly sorted us all out with VIP passes and Anya with a photo pass (as she's a professional photographer by trade) so we're made to feel very spoilt for the evening. Thanks Chi! It also provides us with a bit of sanctuary from the mayhem right in front of the main stage i.e. about 1000 teenagers throwing plastic bottles and water balloons at each other. Kids, eh. (I wish I was still one of them).  Still, there's another 10,000 or so here who aren't entertaining themselves in this way and absolutely everyone turns their attention to the stage the moment The Go! Team bound onto it. Unfortunately, due to time restrictions and a10pm curfew the band only have a shortish slot and cram in seven songs but really engage everyone, including the aforementioned 1000 14 year-olds who, chances are, have probably never seen them before. The air ceases to be filled with the youth-propelled, water-filled firework of earlier and replaced with the audio-fuelled rockets of T.OR.N.A.D.O, Grip Like a Vice and a rockin' 'The Power Is On' amongst others. I'm also really loving Ninja's 'To the left -  to the left - and back - to the right' bit she's introduced into Ladyflash recently. It really works and is quite mesmerising, as is Chi and Ian's dual duel drumming on Voice Yr Choice - each with their own individual styles but totally on the button - and this track is the highlight of the set for me. However, at times,  I find myself watching the kids in front of the stage, rather than the band, interested to gauge their reactions to this potentially 'new band'  to them - and I'm chuffed to see everyone's well into it. It's also great that the Bingley Festival traditionally do this free night every year and give folks a rare opportunity to see bands as good as The Go! Team for nothing. Eddie, Anya and I all regroup in the bar after the show and it's great to get an equally rare opportunity to catch up with them, talk about gigs, Eddie's amazing White Stripes record collection and the band Bauhaus that brought us all together in the first place. Later we're joined by Chi, Kaori and Sam who we chat to briefly - and then sadly, at just gone 10pm, and as the Fun Lovin' Criminals close their set with 'Scooby Snacks', it's time to make the return trip home. I play 'No Cars Go' one more time as I leave the festival grounds and the closing lyrics make me smile but also leave me a little sad: 'Old folks, let's go! Don't know where we're going'.    

Koko, London - 30 November 2011
I still haven't got used to the name Koko. To me, this wonderful 100 year-old music hall situated at the southern tip of Camden High St will forever remain the home of The Clash, early Adam & The Antz, Spizz Oil and Siouxsie and the Banshees in its late 70s incarnation as The Music Machine - and later throughout the early 80s as the New Romantic/Goth haunt The Camden Palace where bands would come on at midnight beneath two bizarre, giant, naked foam trapeze artist puppets suspended from the ceiling. Where the air was filled with  the smell of Bristows hairspray emitting from every crimped black and dayglo pink barnet. Where the offer of wraps of speed proffered from every darkened leather booth, every shady nook and cranny (or should that be crook and tranny?). It was indeed a super-seedy and other-worldy place and very exciting for this 14 year-old. Ever since I went to my first gig in 1979 I have always been captivated by the magic and history of music venues, particularly those in the capital, past and present, that I have been to so often. The Lyceum Ballroom, Hammersmith Palais, The Rainbow, The Venue, Kilburn National Ballroom, the Electric Ballroom - all steeped in the very best of music history.  Koko is doubly special for me as it's the place, in 2006, that I saw The Go! Team for the very first time. That night I stood upstairs behind the mixing desk area and watched as the band  proceeded to blow away all my ill-judged opinions that there was nothing new and exciting and 'punk-rock' in music anymore. I have never been more affected by a performance. I grew up with the punk and new wave scene and yet here was a band more chaotic, more raw, more disregarding of boundaries and genres, more damned exciting and energetic and unique than anything I'd seen before. And I left that night in state of euphoric confusion. How could this be happening in 2006? How could this be happening to me a year off my 40th birthday? Were they really this good or was I having some sort of mid-life crisis?

Nearly six years on, the mid-life crisis is thankfully still on hold and The Go! Team are still really this good. The euphoric confusion still remains though. I still don't know how they do it but I'm awfully glad they do. Tonight's show is the icing on the top of the Memphis Industries 13th birthday cake - a night of celebration, as the label enters its teenage years, with sets from four of its esteemed roster - Colourmusic, Dutch Uncles, Field Music and, headlining, the band that undoubtedly helped kickstart the many industrial revolutions that were to follow. And yet, while The Go! Team undoubtedly helped to cement the label's past, there appears to be some uncertainty about the future. Tonight's show has widely been acknowledged as the last Go! Team show 'for a while' and there has been refuted rumours that it could be their last - full stop (or should that be an exclamation mark). So while I am enthralled once again, from the same vantage point, with Chi and Ian's lock-down double drumming on Voice Yr Choice, Sam's super-sonic, 'concord in a cathedral', reverb-tastic guitar attack in The Ice Storm, Ninja's captivating stage presence and Jamie's Ali-like foot-shuffles as smooth and slick as his bass playing, I can't help watching each member's face intently for the faintest tell-tale sign that they just might be playing Buy Nothing Day or Huddle Formation or Grip Like A Vice for the very last time. Thankfully I see no such signs - the band look happy, relaxed and as effervescent as ever.  We get wonderful and the most complete sounding versions yet of Apollo Throwdown, the aforementioned Buy Nothing Day and Ready To Go Steady mixed with an ecstatically received Ladyflash and Bottle Rocket alongside an incendiary Flashlight Fight and The Running Range.  It's an all-out upbeat set that barely pauses for breath (except for a lovely and touching moment when the band prise Matt and Ollie Jacob - founders of Memphis Industries - out of the wings to receive a much-deserved moment of appreciation from everyone). The band complete their hour long set and a packed Koko responds just as it did nearly six years ago. On that front nothing has changed.

For me everything else has changed. Back in 2006 I didn't know anyone in the band. To be honest I couldn't even have told you all their names. And they certainly couldn't have told you mine. Tonight, after Chi's packed up her kit, she kindly comes to find me in the top bar where the Memphis party is in full swing, so that she can escort me backstage to say brief hellos and goodbyes to the band. Not something I could ever have envisaged happening six years ago and not something I will ever take for granted. When Chi finds me she comments immediately on what a fantastic view of the stage there is from up here. I turn to look and my heart sinks. There, sitting on his own, on the edge of a drum riser contemplating the empty stage is Ian Parton. And I manage to swallow the lump in my throat before Chi notices.

Five minutes later, thanks to Chi and the Go! Team's soundman, and all-round top bloke Tommy, I find myself walking down a ramp straight onto the same empty stage and the surreal nature of this experience - to be on stage at such a legendary venue that I've loved for so long - followed by a guided tour of the backstage labyrinth of staircases, lounges and dressing rooms - is overwhelming. Yeah, sure Madonna and Prince and Coldplay have all played here - but all I can feel walking up the narrow staircases are the ghosts of The Clash walking down past me toward the stage, a 19 year-old Siouxsie Sioux lounging against a landing wall, a pre-fame leather-clad Adam and his Antz putting on their Seditionaries shirts and make-up in a dressing room we just passed. So much history, so many heroes - the corridors resonated and echoed with the past and I felt incredibly privileged to be there. It may seem daft, I know, but to me it was akin to a Beatles fan being shown around Abbey Road studios. And then my present set of heroes come into view in the shape of Ninja and Ian and Kaori and Jamie and Sam and of course my guide Chi - and, as always, I become tongue-tied and forget the many things that I wanted to say and try not to get in anyone's way, before saying my goodbyes. And then at around 12.30am I head out of the backstage door with a good friend into the rainy streets of north London, leaving behind the echoes of tonight's gig and praying they don't join those locked in the past, captured in this wonderful old building - not quite yet at least. Time will tell.