Day 4: Take me to my beach...

I wake to the comforting anonymity of the Reading Travelodge and rise to make coffee. In the double bed to my left, the outline of two bodies indicate to me that I have room-mates, though who they are yet I cannot tell, for I stumbled into my bed just as soon as we arrived at the hotel – at 3 am – exhausted by the rigours of life on the road. The rest of the entourage, hardened as they are to the capricious demands of touring, remained at the entrance to the building, smoking fragrant Turkish cigarettes and quietly chewing over the day’s events, the gig they had just played, the fans they had spoken to.

As the water begins to boil, a voice – which I recognise as that of Mark ‘Ace’ Jones – issues from beneath the duvet. “Coffee,” it says. As I reach for a second cup to set beside my own, Alan ‘Roots’ Apperley rises as though sleep-walking from the furthest side of the bed. He walks to the kettle and grabs the cup from my hand. “And a cigarette,” says the muffled voice from beneath the duvet, and sure enough Apperley turns to Jones’ jacket hanging on the back of the chair and retrieves the tobacco pouch. I crawl back into bed, leaving Apperley to his labours.

At mid-day, we assemble in the car-park of the hotel, at the open doors of Dave ‘Big Dave’ Wassell’s spacious tour bus. Big Dave has been up since 10 am performing basic maintenance on his vehicle and cleaning out the debris from the previous day. He has already eaten two breakfasts and is now keen to hit the road in search of lunch. We have a long drive ahead of us, and like the van he so lovingly maintains, Big Dave needs constant refuelling.

The band are in good spirits after last night’s triumphant gig, but there is no self-congratulatory back-slapping here. Ever moving forward, the talk is of this evening’s gig at the enigmatically-named Tom Thumb Theatre in the historic seaside town of Margate, enshrined forever in the popular Chas ‘n’ Dave track of the same name. It is a mark of the innate modesty of the Nightingales that they prefer these smaller, more intimate venues. I’m not sure I understand this. Does it not indicate a lack of aspiration on the part of the band? And is it really fair to those fans who are turned away, unable to get into the venue to see their heroes? Lloyd smiles quietly to himself, and leaves it to Kitson to respond: “We treat every gig as the most important we’ve ever played.” As she says this, her eyes moisten and thin threads of mascara begin to trickle down her cheeks. “We live for those moments on stage. It’s not important how many people are in the room. The music’s the thing. Adulation, worship, fame – yes, we have all this. But if we didn’t get that shiver of excitement as we hit the first note of the set, we just wouldn’t bother.” From his seat just behind Kitson, Lloyd places a hand on Kitson’s shoulder, comforting her as she weeps extravagantly while wringing her hands. The rest of the band nod in agreement, their moist eyes glistening in the pale light of the van.