You’d have thought I’d have learned my lesson eight years ago when I almost had to be air ambulanced back from Wales but, no, here I am again on tour with Therapy? Even worse, our first stop-off is that epicentre of decadence and bad behaviour, Amsterdam. You can promise all you like that you’re not going to get fucked up, but as soon as you’ve dumped your bags it’s off to the nearest coffee shop to check out the local produce. I’m not going to bore you with tales of journalistic derring do – well, not yet! – suffice to say that it’s amazing how much damage you can do for €5.

The consensus at home might be that they’re past their sell-by date, but in Holland, Andy Cairns, Michael McKeegan, Martin McCarrick and Derby County supporting new boy Neil Cooper are still major news. And a godsend to the ape-like touts outside the Melkweg – that’s the Milky Way to you, squire – who are charging fifty notes for a €15 ticket. They mightn’t have troubled the top 10 recently but Therapy? are still perfectly capable of stuffing 800-capacity venues, thank you very much!

“We’ve always valued our fans but last year they were actually what stopped us splitting up,” Andy Cairns divulges over a pre-gig litre of Heineken. “Our Shameless album selling no copies because the record company didn’t get it into the fucking shops was bad enough, but then Graham (Hopkins) announced he was leaving and it was, ‘Great, no deal, no drummer!’ When you’re in that situation you have to ask yourself, ‘Do I have the energy to go on?’ I wasn’t sure at first but then the letters and emails of support came in and I realised we had a duty to those people to stick with it.”