'A Day With The Dum Dums' - By Webmaster, James Clarke

So after a late night at Tower Records in London it was time to head up to Birmingham for Steve's hometown gig! We left London fairly early and went via Oxford where the boys did a 'Take Over' show on Fox FM, in which they were DJs for an hour and played some of their favourite songs (while fooling about!) We then headed up to Wolverhampton where we stopped off for the boys to do a couple of local radio interviews - then is was onto Pebble Mill (BBC studios) in Birmingham for an interview and acoustic session on Janis Long's Radio 2 show. There were a few technical hitches, which meant a trip to the BBC cafe(!) but once they were sorted the boys did a great interview with Janis and then a 3 song acoustic set consisting of 'Army Of Two', 'Can't Get You Out Of My Thoughts' and 'Ship'......

We had been somewhat delayed, so by the time we arrived at Tower the store was already full and the boys had to be rushed into the dressing room in front of the waiting crowd! Before long they took to the stage in front of an extremely loud and lively audience - everyone in Brum was well up for the gig and there was something you don't tend to see at acoustic shows - a mosh pit! The show went without a hitch and the crowd went nuts - all in all it was a brilliant yet tiring day. I then headed home (I live near B'ham) and the boys and their crew headed down to Southampton overnight.

On a personal note, I was exhausted after spending just two days with the boys and following their schedule - quite how they and the crew keep up the pace for a month or more is beyond me. I didn't realise until then just how hard they all worked - what they do may look very 'showbiz', but it's damn hard work!