August 24th - The Greystones, Sheffield.

3 Cities, 1 weekend mini-tour, 2.

The watery scene which awaits you from Sheffield Railway Station.

Sheffield, where the sturdy buildings seem carved out of the rock itself and seem as tough as the surrounding hills. Sheffield, where straight-talking, no-nonsense, macho blokes call each other "love". Sheffield, where a long-unseen friend I recently got back in touch with (via the magic of facebook) invited me to the awesome venue for a charity gig she helped put together and run, in aid of the Weston Park Hospital Cancer Charity.

Sadly I missed Chrisy's performance (she has moved over the years from being a talented visual artist to a full-on commitment to music) but it was great to catch up with her and see her again after so long, in a double-whammied, synchronitic bit of luck and niceness, another 'old' friend, Jenni who came along too it was really lovely to see her again and see how well things are going for her as well.

The Greystones is a great venue, and just a look around the posters at the awesome, legendary acts they've had on and coming up shows what a good job they are doing, have a look yourself here. It's sort of a normal, if larger than average pub at the front with a sizable "backroom" venue at the back. Superb. The locally brewed Thornbridge beers are nice too! 

A lot of appropriately very high-quality acts on, I was particularly impressed with Richard Brind who played an engaging and in places acerbic set which was highly individual and distinctive in both guitar-playing and songwriting.  
This is a venue I can't wait to return to some time.

The views from the train window (when not in tunnels) were often spectacular.

Richard Brind impressed everyone.

Rosie's view (my guitar), well, if she was out of the gig-bag.