Thursday night: The Secret Machines and Interpol at the Carling Academy in Birmingham. I booked a room at a nearby Travelodge, printed out directions for home to the hotel, the hotel to the gig, the gig to the hotel and the hotel to home from Mapquest. The journey time was only an hour, so I gave it four. What could go wrong...

Well, for a start, apparently I can't read. The journey time was two and a half hours... and I have no idea how I read that as one. Never mind... still plenty of spare time.

Unless of course, it's park-your-lorry-on-the-hard-shoulder day on the M40. There must've been three of them broken down and each time they had to close one of the lanes so they could work on each. Anyway... finally made it to the hotel at 7.15pm and booked in.

Now, for reasons which aren't exactly clear, the hotel was only easily reachable if you were on the south-bound carriageway. A rumour printed in the hotel's directions suggested the possibility of a chance of their being a phantom route across the bridge. I couldn't find it from the north-bound side, so I had to go up to the next exit and come back down to get to it.

However, when leaving to get to the gig, I saw a road heading north from the are, so I took it and found myself staring at a very elaborate electronic gate system. I found and presses a buzzer a couple of times before someone answered.

“How do I get through the gate?” I asked.

“Why do you want to?” came the reply.

“Because I want to get out...”

“Mutter mumble, card”.

Fine. I'll drive five miles down the M5, leave the motorway, go around the roundabout and head towards Birmingham because you're a fucking jobsworth.

OK, so I'm heading into Birmingham now on the Quinton Expressway. Let's check the instructions.

“Pass through 1 roundabout.”

OK.

“Quinton Expressway becomes Hagley Road”

Right... I can see how knowing that would be useful if I was walking.

“Stay straight to go onto ramp.”

Er...

“Stay straight to go onto Hagley Road”

I can't see the fucking road names that easily you know...

“Enter next roundabout and take 3rd exit onto Islington Row”

This roundabout doesn't seem to have a third exit unless I'm doing a u-turn... must be the wrong roundabout.

“Turn slight left on Bath Row”

About that guiding me by street names thing..?

“Bath Row becomes Holloway Head”

Nope... I'm completely lost. Everything else seems to signposted in town, except the Carling Academy. Did they not pay their council tax or something. I need to buy an A-Z at that petrol station. For £10. They know how to charge.

So, armed with a decent map, I park in the Pallisades Car Park and by dint of the Shopping Centre's map, a quick glance at the A-Z and two handy bus-stop maps, I make it to the Carling Academy having only to fend off two touts on the way.

I make a bee-line for the bar, wondering if I missed TSM. At the bar, a man with a bad haircut and stick pushes in front of me and apologises. “What did you think of the first band? They were pretty good I thought” he adds.

“I didn't see them - got here late”

Oh well. Let's have a pint of piss-weak beer. Wonder what they serve at the Carling Academy bar...

Guinness, Grolsch or Carling. I don't like Guinness - any drink you can eat with a fork should be avoided. Grolsch really is, I have it on good authority, genuine dutch urine. So I accept a plastic “pint” of watered-down Carling for the low-low price of £4 something.

The place is packed. I can see I won't be able to see from the balcony, so I find a spot downstairs near the mixing deck. The guy on the mixer looks like a friend of mine - if he'd grown a foot-long ginger beard. Nearby, a girl slaps the face of her male companion. It seems all in fun though as a second lad giggles and hugs the slappee, then repeats the punishment. Both boys have hairstyles rather like William and Jim Reid of the Jesus and Mary Chain. One of them has tinsel wrapped around his wrists.

As is traditional at these things, the two tallest people in the place turn up to meet their short friends who were happily not obscuring my view in front of me. I replace the finished pint with a pint of diet coke, the bartender warning me that it's £3.20 for the coke. I don't really see the issue, it's cheaper than the pint of beer and probably has more alcohol in it.

It's 9.15pm and Interpol come on stage. There were some false starts when some members of the crowd cheered as roadies came on... forgetting perhaps that Interpol are usually better dressed. That said, singer Paul's trilby is naff. They open up with Next Exit and Obstacle 1. Then I lost track of things... They were playing the best I've even seen them, which, as this is the first time, isn't saying much. Actually, they're pretty damn good. NYC got probably the loudest cheer when it was recognised. They rounded up with an couple of encores and I departed to head to the hotel.

Where things descended into farce again. I'd parked in the Pallisades Car Park, and adjunct to the Pallisades Mall, which was now closed. Which meant I couldn't reverse my route to get to the car. So I wandered around and finally found an entrance to the Pallisades Car park. However, it was the other Pallisades Car Park with no access to the first. Lest you think this is my fault, there were two other groups of people looking for their cars in there. We finally, with help from an attendant, got directions to the correct park.

Then, I had to get out of Birmingham. This was like some horrible nightmare. Every junction led to a dead end or another car park. I felt like I was doomed to circuit the Bullring for eternity, unable to escape from it's gravitational pull.

Luckily, before I got too depressed at that, I found a way out.