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Friday 7^th September dawns, and I’m busy packing gear into my car…all my amps and guitars for the open mic. and Saturdays gigs, Mike’s guitars, my stands and merchandising for Leeds guitar show, a load of parts for guitar making kits, plus tools and workmate benches, drums…and a load of cahon making kits…the top box is packed full...and the gear in the back of my little Meriva is packed tight to the roof.

We dial the now-familiar route to Manchester into the satnav..and off we go..this time a fairly easy journey up north…with only one incident of animals in the road, when just outside Manchester we are held up while a herd of cows are driven across the main road for milking…Mike must reckon this happens everywhere in the UK.

On arriving at The Salutation (parked right outside the beer garden…we couldn’t have got any closer), a goodly number of the HGMC regulars and guest artists are already there and well into a few beers.  We get our bags dropped into our room…we’d taken over all of the accommodation upstairs at the pub. First thing is a trip over to The Band on The Wall to load in for Saturday, so once that was done, it’s back across town to the pub. The Sally is a trad street corner boozer, with a small L-shaped bar, so it’s going to be pretty tight and intimate. Lots of willing hands help get the gear out of the car, and then we were shown a cupboard with all the pa gear..and that was it...we had to figure it out for ourselves. So, speakers are rigged, desk and amp dropped onto a table, and I find the “Manchester flightcase” with all the necessary cables…well..it was a black bin bag with a snake’s nest of nearly all the necessary cables.  After a bit of headscratching, some advice form Mike and using up most of my reserve of spare leads, I manage to rig the whole thing together and get a sound out of it…set up a backline, Hollowbelly gets his percussion sorted,  and we are ready to go.

The pub is pretty crowded, so I get proceedings underway..and after that, to be perfectly frank, my recollections are a little hazy. I’ve had about a week and a half on the road, played loads of gigs, shifted and re-shifted tons of gear and I’m just grateful that everything is rolling, that we’ve got a noisy pub full of happy people, so I reckon that’s job done.  Roosterman gets on with the task of lining people up and keeping the music coming.  So, a couple more beers and a couple of burgers from the barbeque that’s been set up in the back yard…and I’m glad that it all seems to be going well.  I’ve no real recollection of who played that evening, so my apologies for not name-checking you all. Suffice to say, there seems to be a really good vibe in the place, with regulars, open mic players, HGCM members and international guest performers all rubbing shoulders and sharing a great evening..the best Friday night we’ve had I think.  We break all the gear down, stack up stuff in the stairs and hallway of the upstairs accommodation and retire to sleep the sleep of the just…for a few hours.

Saturday we are up bright and early, over to The Band on The Wall, where the usual suspects are stood outside a caff opposite the venue…after perusing the “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam” menu I decide on a cup of coffee and get on with loading-in the gear.

Well…I’ve got to say. I’m still stressed out by everything, attendance numbers seem lower than last year …people who have bought tickets haven’t turned up…..but we crack on and get going with guitar making, players’ workshops (blimey…I have Hollowbelly sitting in on my morning workshop, no pressure for me to do a good job then!).  We have a couple of latecomers who want to build guitars, so Ben gets stuck in and does the job with them in about half an hour…and all of a sudden it’s lunchtime. Mellow Peaches do a cool set in the foyer...and I grab a beer from the selection of real ales and a spicy veggie pasty…and it’s on with more playing workshops with Hollowbelly...and our very first cahon making workshop. Becky and Trev from BabaJack do a nice introduction, and then we do our first ever group workshop build. Amazingly, it seems to go well, even one of the bar staff has a go...and we end up with a whole set of completed drums..and goodness me..they actually sound better than the prototype which I made before the show!  Becky take the group through the techniques of playing cahon….and it all seems to have been a success….all things considered.

So time for a break, in readiness for the evening gig…but I can’t remember anything about eating...so guess I must have just kept on working, and it’s all hands on deck clearing the room and prepping for the soundchecks.

We get everyone soundchecked …we are running a little late, but are finished well before doors are due to open…so all I have to do now is pace up and down and see if anyone else turns up for the gig. I needn’t have worried, as the place starts getting busy early on…and people keep coming through the door. I hang out on the pavement for a bit…Hollowbelly tells me “I just love for you’re doing for everybody"..or words to that effect…just a few words, but it means a lot coming from this guy, even tho’ we are both probably a bit ‘tired and emotional’.  I go back inside and have a word with the sound engineer about tightening up the running order to bring the last act on a bit earlier..then all of a sudden, it’s showtime!!! I get on stage, do a quick intro…first up is British Blues Awards nominees and good friends of mine, BabaJack..with Becky Tate on cahon and percussion, Trevor Steger on wine box guitar, Dobro and harp. Trev has a little glitch with one of the cables, but pretty soon they are off and running at full tilt, with a powerful acoustic hard-driving set.

Next up is Mike Snowden…I’ve been with him on the road all week, but it’s still a pleasure to see him perform again. By now the room is really busy, and what is even more gratifying is that it’s not full of your usual all-male middle-aged blues punters, there’s quite a few young couples, and lasses on a ‘girls night out’….I’m beginning to feel relaxed now, but I’m now on a strict regime of drinking only Coca Cola, as I’ve got a job of work to do.

I’m running around cueing up the acts well in advance, so they are ready for their stage call….Dave Acari is all cool, hanging out with Jukka and Andy in the dressing room (blimey..what a venue, we have two dressing rooms!)… he tells me all he needs to do is “put on a fresh shirt and put some shit in my hair”.  What a storming performance…his performance lives up to the “Fucked-up Alt Blues” tag on his teeshirts….so full of energy and attitude.  I’m watching from the wings, when he announces..”I’ve just looked down at the floor, and there’s nae fuckin’ whisky!”  So I rush off to the bar to buy him a double Bells..and Hollowbelly has heard it too, and had made exactly the same move from the front of house. I give the glass of whisky to HB, and as soon as it’s in Dave’s hand it’s down in one and he’s off on another scorching number.   Towards the end of the set he steps down from the stage and walks through the audience with his radio mic. resonator guitar…then out to the bar with a trail of people following...then the radio reception breaks up a bit…and he’s out on the street.  Once he’s back in the building, he starts playing a totally acoustic number, right in amongst the audience, really cool and sensitive playing ..but it doesn’t last long, and he’s back up on stage, shouts “Fuck that!!!” and winds the volume and overdrive to the max with a terrific finale.

 Dave Acari onstage at Boxstock

Blackriver Bluesman and Bad Mood Hudson are the final act of the evening, and by far and away the loudest! Resplendent in their black suits with brocade lapels and silk shirts (with an impenetrable dry wit, they refer to their stage outfits as “traditional Finnish fisherman’s costumes”) they fill the room full of dark, bleak, heavy, intoxicating rock.  By now I’ve been with them on road for quite few gigs, but still love it…sitting on the floor right in front of the bass bins under the stage riser, Mike Snowden and myself can almost feel our shirts being blown about by the sheer assault from Jukka’s Lowebow and Andy’s drumkit.  And then it’s time to wrap up the evening, thank everyone for coming..and pack up all the gear.  As I’ve decided to do a guitar show in Leeds the next day, I have to get everything out of the venue and into my car, then unload it all again at The Salutation where we are staying.  So we get 4 or 5 hours rest, and it’s up at 7.00am, pack the car, say cheerio to Hollowbelly and Sam…who are also early risers, and tell Ben that we’ll see them in Harrogate for the afternoon show, after we’ve been to Leeds. Yes…Sunday isn’t a day of rest for us…me and Mike head off over the Pennines (surely the UK’s most scenic motorway drive) to Leeds, get there for around 9.00am, and by 10.00am we are ready to face the public and sell, sell, sell!!

Leeds Guitar show..we're in there somewhere..amongst all the boring stuff!

I did a pretty hard sales pitch, and by 4.00pm we’d shifted quite a few guitars, stompboxes, books and slides. I’d told Mike earlier on in the tour that I wanted to buy the red “Punch” cigarbox guitar that he’d been using, but he insisted in giving it to me….it caught me at a bit of a low point emotionally, being tired and exhausted, and I came over all weepy at the gesture…especially as he signed it with a little dedication. Anyway, we broke down the stand, packed everything away and hot-footed it over to The Blues Café in Harrogate for yet another gig.

Simon, gaffer at The Blues Cafe

About half an hour later, we are outside The Blues Café, we got a parking spot right outside the bar, but as I was knackered and also couldn’t see out of the back of the car, made right hash of parking...right in front of the crowd of punters who were hanging out on the pavement.  Amongst the crowd we find Ben, Jukka and Andy, then head inside and set up our gear.  Jukka and Andy have already played, but do another couple of numbers, and then me and Mike do an impromptu set to finish the afternoon. It all goes down well…so, once again, more gear to pack away, then off to find somewhere to eat (as unfortunately the Blue Nile isn’t open).  We have ‘the last supper’, and it’s a nice way of wrapping up the whole week and a half’s roadtrip madness that has been Boxstock.  When the drinks arrive at the table, Jukka produces a piece of paper and proceeds to jot down what drinks they’ve just ordered. At first I thought it was simply a log of interesting beers that they’d been drinking whilst over in the UK…but no, it’s a sort of two column schedule with a day-by-day breakdown of how many glasses of beers, cider, wine, Fernet Branca, Jaegermeister, vodka, whisky etc that Jukka and Andy had got through. I still can’t figure out why they did this, and felt it was a bit rude to ask the purpose of this mystical alcoholic accounts sheet…maybe it’s all tax deductible or part of some arctic health regime.  During dinner, Ben gets a call from Becky of BabaJack, to tell us they are runners up to Ian Siegal in the British Blues Awards acoustic category, but the big news is that Becky has won instrumentalist of the year!  Cheers all round , and what a great way of finishing off the tour.

After dinner, we load up my little car with as many cigarbox guitar kits as I can transfer from Ben’s 4x4 and hit the road. We are back in Birmingham by about 10.30pm…..around 1500 miles under our wheels and 10 shows logged up over the past week and a half.  Monday is a late start, and we ramble into town...to Mike’s delight on the top deck of a double decker bus…and have lunch at a great real ale pub, the Wellington.  They don’t do food, but encourage patrons to take in their own lunch, so a quick visit to Greggs and we’ve got sandwiches, pizza and custard tarts…accompanied by a couple of pints of excellent British beer.

The Crooked House..it REALLY is that f*cked up!! See..those tables outside really are level. Totally weird..and a great pub.

Tuesday is Mike’s last full day in the UK, and we head off to meet up with Becky and Trev to return some gear which they’d left in Manchester. We meet at the Ruskin Glass centre in Amblecote, home of Diamond Bottlenecks. Ian McWee of Diamond makes all my glass slides, and while we are visiting, Mike and Ian get into conversation about what slides Mike uses.  Ian takes a few dimensions off Mike’s favorite slide, and tells us to come back in 15 minutes. So we have coffee and cakes with Trev & Becky, return to the workshop, and Ian presents Mike with his own slide…hand-blown lead crystal glass, cut to the exact size and polished to perfection…what a great thing to do!  We ask Ian for the directions to The Crooked House, a well known local pub that is famous for it’s amazingly leaning walls , roof, windows…well pretty much everything.  In the 19^th century it was undermined by coal mining, and tilted…a lot. One end of the pub is 1.2 metres lower than the other!  It makes us dizzy just walking towards the front door….we have a couple of glasses of local ale and some doorstep sandwiches..and head off back to my place.  In the morning I  take Mike over to the airport….and that’s him on his merry way...back to Georgia, by way of a swift visit to Amsterdam.

It’s been an amazing and exhausting two weeks, meeting old friends, making new ones and listening to some great music.  The amount of physical and mental effort that’s required to put on the shows and take people out on the road is huge…Ben and I have had flights & visas to sort out, hotels to book, take a whole PA, backline and drum kit on the road, as well as co-ordinating technical requirements at every venue for 2 acts all across the UK, act as paymaster, road manager, sound engineer, driver, hotelier, personal assistant, tourist guide…the list of duties goes on and on. I swear never to do it again...until the day after, and Ben is on the phone telling me with great cheerfulness that the Band on The Wall want to talk to us about more events next year, and he’s got some great ideas for next year’s Boxstock….no rest for the wicked!