MILO

SATURDAY 10TH JULY - MANCHESTER

7am on Saturday 10th July I was out of bed with a jump, a jump that carried me straight into the shower then from there into the kitchen to tidy up all my crap from the night before.

Then only five minutes doing my hair (she-et) before my mum gave me a lift to meet the tourbus - and what a bus it was.

A grinning Robin and Lee were the first things I saw and that told me all I needed to know about our home for the next ten days. The bus was awesome. Bunks, lounges and crucially, a playstation. Tim and Lisa sensibly took advantage of the bunks while everyone else embarked on the beginning of our love affair with the Ps2.

Within no time we were at the Old Trafford cricket ground. It's tough to picture a festival in a a cricket ground, but that's what it was. Immediate set up, no soundcheck then up to hospitality.

Tim and Lisa got massages, Lee and Robin got stuck into the food and I sat on the balcony enjoying getting mistaken for the Stereophonics lead singer, our major disparity (massive height difference in my favour) cancelled out due to my being seated.

At first i questioned the fact that i was getting waved at, then I sat back and enjoyed it until the truth sank in. Then I felt quite self conscious and went back inside.

Soon we were playing and had a few sound problems. We had on ok gig but didn't come together as a band in the way that we can...highlight of the day for me personally was the afterparty.

The afterparty was held underneath the stage - free drinks, fairy lights and a DJ. Lee, Robin, Lisa and I had a group dance-off with a gang of camp dudes that they actually took quite seriously. If anyone is interested, Lee favours a kind of a disco bunny hop movement, Robin slithers around like a snake and I go for a Justin Timberlake bastardisation. Lisa just always looks cool.

Not a great gig for us onstage though. We were disabused of the notion that we had had a terrible gig by some very positive feedback and the crowd response, but it wasn't the best show we've ever performed...

SUNDAY 11TH JULY - T IN THE PARK

...because that was our next gig! Before I start on T in the Park, the crew have to be introduced. The tour manager is a guy called Tec, which is his real name. He looks like a cross between John Lydon and Richard O' Brien (The Crystal Maze, The Rocky Horror Show...remember?) and rules the roost. You don't misbehave when you know you have those steely blue eyes to contend with.

Difficult to believe, but we also have two members of the crew with the names...Jeff Buckley and Noddy Holder. Jeff is a lighting guy who did loads of work with James and Noddy's the drumcentric backbone of the crew, who can fix everything and always has a spare.

Soundmen Chris and Stuart have worked with some massive names and makes the gig very enjoyable for everyone with their sonic abilities and indecipherable chat about sound frequencies.

Stuart is our onstage sound guy and a notorious straight talker. After our gig at The Wedgewood rooms in Portsmouth he took me to one side and advised me that it's '...not a good idea to show the audience my sweaty ass.' , as it can sometimes get that way after an energetic gig. Eagle eyed gig goers will spot that I now walk off stage in a crablike sideways fashion.

Anyway, T in the Park. We went to sleep in Manchester and woke up in Glasgow. As a festival it had all the best bits of Glastonbury with none of the mess.

We headed straight up to the stage to get going as we had a 3pm slot, directly after a Stone Roses cover band, The Complete Stone Roses, who were awesome. They held a capacity crowd of 12,000 spellbound and left us with a tough act to follow.

The crowds in Glasgow are known to be fantastic. We immediately got a great reception and tore into the songs with a degree of energy and togetherness that we were lacking slightly the day before. Tim was particularly on fire - he seemed to feed off the energy of the crowd and gave an amazing performance, as anyone who was there will confirm. The noise that greeted us after Sometimes was staggering, as was the reception to our last number, Monkey God.

We came off stage, had a brief chat with Amy Winehouse before she went on. She's very very sexy in the flesh and down to earth and I SWEAR she was flirting with me. Lee spent the rest of the day teasing me because I kept looking out for her to reappear round a corner. This is how our conversation went:

I was kind of deflated when our tour manager later said that she was just 'a very friendly person'. Oh well.

We spent the rest of the day watching great bands - PJ Harvey, N.E.R.D, The Pixies and The Strokes, who Tim and I watched from the side of the stage.

A quick drool over Drew Barrymore (who's going out with The Strokes drummer), a chat with Badly Drawn Boy and his brother (BDB is good mates with Tim),a game of table tennis then back to the bus for the 12 hour drive, waking up in...

MONDAY 12TH JULY - BRISTOL FLEECE

'You come here and sing.' Said the dude, pleased with his line and the laugh from the crowd.

During the next song, Tim and his wireless mic indeed made their journey across the bartop to the flabbergasted guy and the whole thing worked very well. It kicked us all up a gear and the room ended up a sweaty, but satisfied mess.

TUESDAY 13TH JULY - OXFORD ZODIAC

Short journey next, to Oxford. We arrived shortly after 4am and Rob immediately left the bus, looking for a party... and of course there was no party. It's 4am in Oxford on a Tuesday morning.

Let me tell you about Robbie - he's always the last man standing. He'll keep the party going as long as you want to keep up with him and he doesn't even get really bad hangovers. He just goes a little quiet sometimes during the day.

We had another blinder, even if I do say so myself. We really did the job, played our best ever version of Bone and had the addition of Lisa singing one of her own songs, a beautiful number which seemed to touch everyone in the crowd...apart from the driver, Dean, who was asleep on the bus throughout our whole set. And every single gig on the tour.

Tim also ventured out into the crowd and seems to be taking more and more risks onstage that are all working. I don't know too much about James to be honest but can certainly see why things took off for them in terms of Tim's stage presence.

WEDNESDAY 14TH JULY - PICCADILLY ST JAMES

Then we had the luxury of spending all day in The West End before our next gig at St James Church in Piccadilly, which our sound and lighting guys were already cursing in terms off the sound and lighting problems the interior of a church was due to cause them.

Playing to people in pews was fairly surreal, but seemed to work. We played a less rocking, slow build type set which actually brought itself to a natural climax at exactly the same time as the audience. After the simultaneous musical orgasms, we all headed home for our day off, before we get started again on Friday, in Birmingham.

Thus far we've all had a great time. No-one's rowed, the bus is fantastic, and the band are getting tighter every gig.

PART TWO