Cell Block 9 - Vintage R&B and Blues - the Cornwall Tour
Anyone who thinks they might like a week or so in Cornwall with the
band on their annual 'I thought this was meant to be a holiday' tour
can pay us some money and we will book the accommodation. We can
sort out transport as well. We have been doing this since 1992
it's always fantastic fun. You can do anything you want, lie on
the beach, look at the scenery, eat and drink too much, we don't care.
We don't even care if you don't come and see the band, our egos
are far bigger than that. So if you don't mind staying in a
holiday caravan and being forced to eat my cooking e mail is on contact
page.
We now have 8 gigs booked and are
playing in Wadebridge, St Columb, Bugle, Bodmin, Falmouth, Plymouth,
Polzeath and Penryn. Nicely spread out. The famous 'Glimmer
Twins' are coming again this year to give us their unique support, we
love 'em. Unfortunately we were unable to book a gig in the
Cornwall Centre for Illiteracy so I suppose all those highly
intellectual, semi upright creatures who gave us such a warm welcome
last year will have to miss out this time, shame! Never mind, you
can't win them all. We are staying at Par Sands this time as they
allow dogs so we can bring the famous 'Cosmic Bob' with us again, he
hates missing the tour. Hopefully we will manage to get some
useful video coverage and some decent recordings as our existing stuff
is now out of date. The best recordings we have made live were
the ones from Cornwall in 2006.
The History of the Cornwall Tour
Way back in 1992 I suggested to the
band that we could rent a little caravan on a site down in Cornwall
[where I come from] and we could book a few gigs so as to have a cheap
holiday; just the four of us. It sounded great, lie on the beach
all day, play music at night, drink beer and generally enjoy ourselves.
What could go wrong? If we knew the answer to that question
I doubt we would have done it. The band members all went for it
and Linda and I booked some gigs. We booked a caravan on a site
at Par and off we went with very little money. The van broke
down, gigs were cancelled, we ran out of cash, the caravan was about
half the size it should have been, the drummer got lost and he got so
pissed at one gig we had to pull another one out of the audience to
finish it. The bass player jumped in a ditch full of sewage while
tripping on his birthday and the site manager was like Basil Fawlty to
the power of ten.
We had a great time. It was
months before we stopped talking about it. The following year we
organized it better. The gigs running up to the event paid for
the whole thing. Several people came with us and we included them
in the accommodation arrangements for a fee. No gigs were
cancelled, we actually got an extra one during the week and played 9
gigs from Friday to the following Sunday. It was fantastic.
The following year we took 21 people with us and had a ball.
This year we have booked 6 caravans
and are taking two groupies, one roadie, one burlesque dancer, one
stolen dog and one partially sighted, autistic dog and even two ex
members of the band. We have gigs down there that we have been
playing for the last 16 years. This event is one of those things
that so far exceeds the original intention that it almost has an
existence of its own, no-one asks "are we going to Cornwall this year?"
We just are.
Tobe.