Tales From The Conference League : First Times

< previous

next>

Being in a band is a glorious succession of Exciting First Times. The Exciting First Time I managed to book a gig at The Charlotte in Leicester, for instance, I was SO excited that I LEAPT up and down in the hallway for a good five minutes before I was ready to rush out to the pub and show off about it.

When John Peel played my World Cup single in 1998 he said "There's been a lot of records released for the World Cup this year and some of them are awful. Here's one that arrived this morning." Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it was still my Exciting First Time on national radio and I still remember it off by heart, and I still had to spend five minutes jumping up and down before I could dash to the pub to celebrate.

I another Exciting First Time this month, when me and The Validators played our first ever proper festival together. We've played all-dayers before and even headlined the Abbey Park Festival (some would say we just went on last when everybody else had gone home, but I reckon that still counts), but this was the first time we'd played with Proper Bands You've Actually Heard Of on a big stage in front of an audience who'd paid to get in.

The occasion was The Fuzztival at Sheffield Students' Union. Penny, who books it, has had me on at every all-dayer she's ever organised since the halcyon days of Pop-A-Go-Go and, luckily for me, has got rather superstitious about it. I'm like the RAVENS on Sheffield Uni's TOWER of ROCK, and if I don't play then DISASTER will occur. I'm just hoping she never notices that it often happens anyway, usually while I'm on stage.

I've always played the acoustic stage before, but this year I got to bring The Validators and play on the main stage. We felt like a Conference League team playing an FA Cup draw at a Premiership ground, in awe of the majesty and ritual. When we arrived there was a crew of burly young men ready and waiting to carry our gear out of the van for us, and once inside they got straight to work setting things up. We thought we'd better help them, as we weren't sure of the etiquette and so ambled around self-consciously like a bunch of 11 year-olds who'd just gone up to Big School. At one point I looked over to see Tim The Drummer surrounded by three youths assembling his drum kit while he tried to look busy, tightening a wing nut on his stool.

Once we actually got going the gig itself was GRATE, and I almost got used to the video screens, the smoke machine, and the fact that there were hundreds of people there we'd never met before, rather than our usual five mates and a soundman. We may have blown our cool a bit when I announced "The Lesson Of The Smiths" - when people cheered we all looked confused and flabbergasted rather than Cool and ROCK - but otherwise I think we managed to carry it off. We left the stage extremely sweaty and though our leaping up and down was a little bedraggled (we're getting on a bit) we were soon able to dash off to the bar.

It was a great day out and a fantastic Exciting First Time. If we ever get to do that sort of thing again we'll probably be a bit less nervous and a bit more ready for how it all works, but I hope we'll still get as excited. It's easy to get blas� about these things, to stop getting excited about what you're doing and eventually become bored and boring, and when that happens it's time to do one of two things - pack it in, or treat it like the first time all over again.

Me, I'm with the born-again Gig Virgins. Let's get to that hallway, and LEAP!

< previous

next>