Wahey... the Isle of Wight Scooter Rally is arguably the largest rally in the world, so we were pretty excited about this one, and even more so when we found out that we playing at the main event, the VFM do at Ryde Arena. Early start for some of us as we had to hire a minibus for this one and first stop was the ferry point in Southampton, where there were already hundreds of scooters waiting in the loading bays. This was a good chance to wander round and have a chat with mates and check out the scoots.

Anyhow, ferry crossing was a doddle and we headed into Ryde. Arriving in Ryde was a great site, the town was full of scooters, thousands of em, the air was blue with 2 stroke, luvverly.

Got soundcheck out of the way, and disapeared off to the Castle to say hello to our friends at the Hipshaker marquee and we had a few drinks and some nosh, kindly supplied to us by the girls in the Arena Cafe and before we knew it, it was showtime. We couldnt believe how quick the place went from a huge, empty and freezing (it's an ice rink after all) space, to a sea of people. Scooterists from all over the country (and Europe apparently). Don't know the exact figures but i'd estimate that there were between 1500 and 2000 people in attendance.

The show went by in a blur, i cant even remember what we opened or closed the show with but the audience liked it and wanted to hear more. This was the funniest bit of the whole day as Gav had run to the dressing room and didnt hear that we'd decided to do an encore. So we trooped back on stage minus our drummer and waited... and waited.. .

Eventually one of the organisers got on the mic and got the audience to shout "Gavin, Gavin Gavin" and eventually our illustrious drummer came wandering cooly out of the dressing room to much applause (and relief from us lot)

Finished the encore and it was already time to go. We had to catch the last ferry back as we had to return the van next day, so no standing round milking the praise tonight boys and girls. It was real shame as there were lots of people offstage who wanted to stop and have a chat but we just didnt have time and we had to say so. This is never a good thing as we wouldnt want people to think we were up ourselves or something, but if we didnt get to Ryde for the last ferry, then we'd be sleeping in the bus, so sorry if you was on those that tried to hold a conversation with one of us and we said "sorry. love to chat but we got to go.." we wasnt being rude, we would have loved to have stopped and had a post gig chat and a few beers, but it wasnt to be tonight.

Anyhow, made the ferry in time and even had time for a quick beer in the pub by the terminal. All in all it was a fantastic day and we really hope we do a return next year.

btw: Gav and Jas got their scooters and went back next day for the ride out, fair play to em.