It’s 1.20 pm and The Holiday Plan have just stepped off Reading’s Concrete Jungle Stage. Rm13 has just arrived in their dressing room where the guys are all hanging out.
Now, is everyone sitting comfortably?
No - between people coming and going and Matt fetching Gary and Blue, then Daniel going to fetch Gary and Blue and Matt, it’s another 10 minutes before we are all gathered.
Then the phone rings.
The phone is turned off, and all other lines of communication as severed, (we wish). It all appears to go well, the questions are answered, there is laughter, and The Plan’s friends who have been watching film it all. Then... Rm13 gets a pang, something's not quite right... we check the dictaphone just to make sure.
Fuck. It hasn’t recorded a thing.
Amid fits of laughter, their tour manger Danny comes in to tell us we have 10 minutes left. Matt reassures me that we can cover everything again in 10 minutes. Matt, we can only hope that you're right, and this is what we got:
They’ve been to Reading before, both as a band and as punters. Matt: “I had a new mobile and it had really cool ring tones on it. I was delighted! But I got drunk and I lost it”. And last time they were here, it was really, really muddy and there were baby frogs everywhere. Gary hates frogs - “they are the spawn of Satan”, his dad found a yellow one and when “he poked it, it screamed! I’m telling you it screamed!”. Gary also found a frog on his doorstep in Hackney - according to him, there are no frogs in Hackney. Sticking to the theme of wildlife for the moment, the story of Daniel and the Leech is recited - Daniel had a leech on his foot - “It hadn’t got its teeth in, it was just wriggling around”. Blue and Matt have “crisp jeans” because they washed them the night before, so they were very clean and fresh -- commence laughter from rest of the band and friends for 10 minutes.
So, once again machinery has foiled us in an attempt to interview The Plan, but one day there will be no machinery, one day...