DAY OUT: Stoke & East Midlands Designer Outlet

Stoke; not so much somewhere you visit, as much as it is somewhere you drive through on the way to Manchester. Certainly not anyone's idea of an exciting day out, and yet... 

Okay so the truth is I wanted to see the statue that had been put up in Burslem for the late, great Lemmy of Motorhead, but I really couldn't justify a 90m drive to look at a statue for five minutes, so we concocted a plan. We'd go to Stoke, do an escape room, drive to Burslem, look at the statue, drive a out of the city and have lunch then drive across country and visit the the East Midlands Designer Outlet before heading home.

And so it was that we headed off just after 9 o'clock, with a stop along the way to collect a watch from the repair shop and with an Escape Room booked for 11:30. Well the journey was a bit ponderous, especially getting to the M1 and so we finally parked up in the Tesco Extra at 11:10 and set of towards the centre. Thankfully, 'Piccadilly' was a lot shorter than it looked on Google Maps and we soon found Escape Stoke and our 'quirky' guide Zoey.

Unlike most escape rooms we seemed to crack on with this one fairly swiftly, but eventually we had to ask for a clue. Zoey told us that she couldn't hear us and that if we needed a clue we should stand with our arms stretched out. Neither of us believed this, I just think she was messing with us, but okay...

It was mostly pretty good, but there was one bit where you were supposed to take a crinkly piece of clear plastic and put it over some symbols and then read some words. Well, no, that was bollocks. Even when Zoey showed us what we were supposed to do and we knew what it said it still was almost unreadable.

But apart from that it was quite good and we nearly got out on time, we were very close and Zoey kindly gave us a few more minutes to finish.

After that we headed back to the car and off to Burslem, which I have to be honest isn't the most picturesque place I've ever visited... but actually the part where Lemmy's statue is situated is probably the best bit.

When we got there there was a guy with a beard and longish hair sitting on a bench and I wondered if he might be there to see the statue too... but he was wearing hi-vis and looked more like a Council worker. 

The statue is very cool and I'm really glad we went to see it. The detailing is amazing, everything from the seams of Lemmy's jeans to his bass cord are perfectly captured and it must really have been a labour of love to get it this good.  

We also noticed that over the road there was a building with 'Lemmy Forever' painted on it, with several pictures and other Motorhead references. I'm not sure what that building is but it looked really good and there was also a small art shop selling Lemmy T-shirts and smaller models of the statue as well.

Unfortunately as we were getting back into the car to leave, two mad old hags came steaming up the road and one of them started an altercation with the bloke I mentioned earlier. He had a litter picking stick and a small bag for the litter and for some reason the elder woman was annoyed with him, She ended up grabbing his litter stick and trying to grab his bag of rubbish too... what a bizarre episode!

We left them to it and headed North... wow, Burslem really is rough. Parts of it look like they've just been bombed, honestly. We kept driving and then suddenly we saw a sign saying 'Welcome to Cheshire'. Just like that, the scenery changed... where before we'd passed derelict houses now the houses looked large and expensive, the contrast was so immediate it was truly comical.

THE BLEEDING WOLF

We stopped at The Bleeding Wolf and a had a lovely lunch of scampi and chips followed by sticky toffee pudding with honeycomb ice cream. It was a nice place and the food was good, definitely worth a visit.

Then we had a good 75m journey back across the country to the East Midlands Designer Outlet, somewhere we've been many times... sometimes a visit can last an hour, sometimes longer. Today we were there for a good couple of hours and picked up quite a few things, including some truly obnoxious green trainers from Nike, a jumper for Rose, some Dubai Lindt and an orange Le Crueset mug for my little collection.

All in all it had been quite a full day, with quite a lot of driving inbetween. We got home about 7:15, a good ten hours after we left home that morning. It was a good day though, and well worth the effort.

GIG: Hashtags (Lubenham)

 

The Coach and Horses (Lubenham) isn't exactly the Rainbow Bar & Grill, and it was kinda funny to see the band setting up and soundchecking while people were finishing up their evening meals. That aside the band were okay, just not really what we were expecting. We thought they would be a bit more 'rock', a bit more AC/DC and a bit less Taylor Swift and Elton John. Oh well.... turns out the singer is a massive fan of Iron Maiden, I was dying for him to say 'Scream for me Lubenham!'. But sadly not.

GIG: Hi On Maiden (Nuneaton)

After many, many years, we finally got to see the official 'Iron Maiden' tribute band 'Hi On Maiden' and overall it was pretty good. Taking the stage with 'Different World' from the 'A Matter of Life and Death' album and then following it up with 'Ghost of the Navigator' from 'Brave New World' it was clear that all was not well with the singer's voice. After those first two songs he apologised and explained that he was very ill and it was either 'cancel' or do his best and he would do his best. It was a shame really, because the vocals are such a huge part of Iron Maiden, but the crowd did their best to help him out.

After the first two songs the set was all drawn from the classic '1980-1992' period, including: Killers, The Number of the Beast, Run to the Hills, Running Free, Iron Maiden, Die With Your Boots On, Hallowed be thy Name, The Prisoner, Revelations, Two Minutes to Midnight, Sea of Madness, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Can I Play with Madness, Wasted Years and Fear of the Dark.

Overall the band played well, and 'Eddie' was quite entertaining, appearing in various guises throughout the show. It was just a pity the singer's voice was so lacking throughout, but still... it was enjoyable enough. 

GIG: Devision Redux (Sheffield Corporation)

 

It had been a long and somewhat trying day already (see previous post) and our feet were hurting before we even got to the Corporation, but thankfully we had a treat in store. We were only expecting to see Devision Redux and Vaughn George (Mesh keyboardist) but on arrival we realised there was another support band called Spire Circle. Actually, maybe it was a good thing we didn't know because we might have decided to find somewhere to sit down for a bit longer and that would have been a shame because actually Spire Circle were rather good. I certainly can't remember the last time I enjoyed a previously 'unknown' support band so much.

SPIRE CIRCLE

When they first came on the bass player was turned up to eleventy stupid, but after the first song the soundman told him to turn it down a bit and it all sounded much better. I don't know how long they've been going and they have that 'new band' uncertainty about them inbetween songs, but when they were actually playing they were very convincing and the music was surprisingly good. They are definitely rooted in the 80s alternative scene and a lot more 'aggressive' than say Devision, but I'm glad they haven't got a guitarist as it would be so easy to go that path. Much better to stick as they are. 

VAUGHN GEORGE

We managed to snag a couple of chairs (mine being a wingback!) to rest our feet in between the bands and after a fairly brief changover we returned to the main room to see Vaughn George sat at his keyboard preparing to play his interpretations of Depeche Mode songs. I guess if we'd thought about this we probably should have realised that he would be focussing on the tedious Martin Gore songs, and so it was... .at least we got 'Stripped' and 'Enjoy the Silence'.

DEVISION REDUX

Again we managed to snag two more chairs for the interval and then it was finally time for Devision Redux. Our feet were really knackered by now, but thankfully DR were excellent (after a slightly embarrassing fluffed start). Considering we really don't know that many of the songs very well it was very enjoyable and very easy to get into. Also the sound was absolutely perfect, not too loud, not too quiet and clear as crystal. EBM legend Daniel Myer provided keyboards and Steffen Keth's vocals were bang on the money. Best songs of the night were 'Flavour of the Weak', 'Time to Be Alive' and 'Rage'.

DAY OUT: Meadowhall & Escape Room (Sheffield)

Having decided to go and see Devision Redux at the Corporation fairly last minute, we rashly decided to make a day of it and incorporate shopping, cocktails an escape room and a meal into the schedule! Which of course was utter madness, and so it transpired...

So after going shopping first thing and leaving just after 10am we arrived at Meadowhall about 11:30 which was too early to eat our lunch. So we headed off into the centre and after visiting Beaverbrooks and looking at their new exclusive Aquaracer we split up and I visited the TAG Heuer boutique, where I saw Gina and tried on a few watches. 

When we came back together we headed to Lindt and Hotel Chocolat and then back to the car to dump our rather impressive haul of goodies in the coolbox. After lunch we headed back into the centre and did a little more shopping before we headed off to Sheffield about 2:20pm.

We parked up at our usual car park (Wellington Street NCP) and then strode off towards the 'Cryptology' escape rooms, which were a good little walk away. 

Henderson's Heist was a really good escape room and we just about managed to escape (61m, in a room that's officially 60m) without too many hints. Our games master was quite funny, playing two different characters before we even got into the room and giving us Oakham 'Toy Shop' vibes. The room is divided into three parts and is quite automated, there was only one padlock in the whole thing. 

It's amazing how different escape rooms are from each other and as such it always takes us a bit of time to get our head around what we need to do to crack on with it. We did waste quite a while trying to steer the delivery truck through the maze, as we didn't realise you didn't need to stop it before every turn... but we got there eventually.

I'd definitely go back and try another one of their rooms.

We got out of the escape room a little earlier than planned so we went for a walk towards Kuckoo (which we believed opened at 5pm). Originally we had booked a table for 6pm at the Green King on West Street, but they cancelled it a couple of days prior. Stupidly I thought, okay well there's a Slug and Lettuce next to Kuckoo and another pub next to that that also does scampi... 

The Kuckoo website said it opened at 5pm but wouldn't let us book a table until 6pm, which was obviously too late. But we figured if we got there at 5pm we would be the only people in there and we'd easily be out by 6pm in time to go eat. 

In actual fact the sign on the door said it opened at 4pm, and I now wonder if you couldn't book before 6pm because they were fully booked?

However, walking around the main area where the bars were it soon became apparent that Sheffield was a lot busier than anticipated. We passed the Slug and Lettuce, which was heaving with drinkers and loud music (as was pretty much everwhere) so it quickly became clear that was a non starter.

As we were quite thirsty we decided to call in at the bar in the Radisson Blu hotel, which was actually a genius idea because it was really nice in there. I mean it would have been nicer if I hadn't been dressed for a gig, and then maybe we could have eaten there too.... although we weren't too sure when they started serving. 

It was a bit of a chore to get to the bar as somehow we went in the arse end of the building and walked around in circles for ten minutes before we eventually somehow managed to find the main reception and a lift that was usuable by non residents! Oh well, we'll know next time. As we left to go to Kuckoo we saw that the menu was actually quite reasonable and if we'd known what was about to go down we could have just bloddy stayed there and had a cocktail and a burger!

But unfortunately we were set on going to Kuckoo and when we finally found our way there around 5:30pm, we were told that it was booked until 6:30pm, Argh. I really don't know why we didn't just go back to the Radisson Blu and try and get something there, but instead we ended up going to Marks and Spencers and Tesco Express and then sitting in the car in the car park eating hot cross buns, crisps and flapjack cookies. 

As nice as the cookies and buns were it was SUPER FUCKING ANNOYING that all our careful planning had turned to complete shit. I mean Meadowhall and the Escape Room were great, and the hotel bar was really nice. It was just super frustrating that we ended sitting in the car for an hour instead of having a nice meal and a cocktail (and still consuming a shit load of calories anyway).

Thankfully, the evening got better from here and I will talk about that in a separate post...