Day 1: Good Morning, Wolverhampton!

Wolverhampton railway station at 5 am is a lively meeting-place for the city's late drinkers and early risers. I pick my way carefully across the platform, taking care not to step on the exhausted alcoholics who clutch their empty two-litre bottles of Osborne's Revenge (a locally-brewed cider, I believe) and who quietly mutter to themselves of the previous day's excitements. I too, am excited. I am on my way to hook up with post-punk anti-heroes the Nightingales, with whom I shall spend the next three weeks as they tour the UK to promote their latest LP For Fuck's Sake. I have flown into the UK from Frankfurt where I am a journalist for Der Mojo. My editor believes that the story of a small, insignificant and ultimately unpopular band of misfits and ne'er-do-wells, struggling heroically - and irrationally - against the repeated rejections of both record labels and the public, will entertain our readers, and who am I to disagree? And so it is that I find myself sitting in a vomit-flecked taxi, hurtling through the mean streets of Wolverhampton, en route to Oaklands Road, where the band are assembling for the long journey to Norwich, and the first gig of the tour.