My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 11/7/02 - An abandoned factory in Hackney, London (CANCELLED)

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This was due to be a COLOSSAL weekend - a Friday off work seeing Oasis in Finsbury Park , a Saturday dashing round London, a Fighting Cocks gig, and then my OWN gig in Cosmopolitan Hackney on Sunday. What could possibly go wrong?

I was forewarned about possible catastrophe with the Oasis gig, as I'd looked at the running order and noted that all the other bands were APPALLING. Oasis, like many many MANY other really good bands, inspired countless copyists who saw the arrogance, the swagger, the simple-minded Beatles copyism and the unimaginative music and thought "AHA! THAT is what people like about Oasis, I shall COPY them!", failing to note that the reason people like them is the IMMENSELY GRATE SONGS [NB first 3 albums - YES I SAID THREE - only] which are SO GRATE they actually get OVER everything about them that is annoying. Unfortunately it seemed that Oasis THEMSELVES didn't realise this, so we had an afternoon of dreary chancers to look forward to, culminating in the dreariest of ALL dreary chancers, The Charlatans. Has ever a band been more aptly named? The only way it could be bettered is if they were called The Band Who Sound Like A Knock-Off Version Of Whoever Was Cool Last Year (e.g. Stone Roses, Primal Scream, Oasis) Whose Next Album Will Probably Sound Suspiciously Like Amy Winehouse, But With An Organ.

I supposed it'd be harder to fit onto posters. Anyway, forewarned is forearmed and so we took the only sensible action: we got horribly horribly BRILLIANTLY drunk. It was GRATE! We BELLOWED along with everybody else when Oasis came on, and the only unpleasant incidents were a) my friend Mileage getting separated from us and ringing up, almost in tears, saying "Help! I'm stuck behind an Ice Cream Van and I can hear The Charlatans!" and b) me becoming SO ANNOYED at my inability to carry a soggy cardboard tray full of beer that I THREW it to the floor... and then remembered it had cost forty quid. And I hadn't been the one to pay for it.

Next day I was up and about and ZIPPING round The Museums Of London - my top tip, The British Library Museum. BEST! MUSEUM! EVER! It's like someone said "Hmm, these other museums are getting a bit lippy, a bit uppity, like they think they're better than us. Let's make EVERYTHING in our very small single room museum SO AMAZING they will never even THINK to challenge us again". For LO! THAT is what it is like.

In the evening we went to see The Fighting Cocks at a swanky DO in a grotty abandoned Factory in Islington - the sort of place SO swanky that there's porn on all the TV screens and the beer costs a fiver. It was VERY London. When they'd finished their bit we went back to the pub: MUCH better.

By the time it got to Sunday, then, I'd had QUITE the Rocking Weekend and was getting a bit nervous about my OWN gig later that evening, especially as the organiser kept ringing and saying "Yeah, the party's been going on all night, there's hundreds of people here, still dancing. The sound system is MASSIVE!" I was a bit worried about how hundreds of spaced out ravers would react to ME suddenly walking onstage and singing to them. Badly, I thought.

I was also afeared of how I'd get home - if this WAS a massive all night DO then chances were I'd EITHER be there myself for a long old time OR not be able to get on until it'd all finished, and so I decided to book, and pay for, another night in the B&B I was staying in. Reassured, at least on that level, I set off to Hackney.

Hackney! When they write the big list of Lovely Places To Visit I would GUESS that Hackney will NOT be on it! Hackney! You can smell it from a distance! Hackney! Where they have England Flags hanging up from many of the houses when there isn't any football on! Hackney! It's shit!

When I arrived all of the above preconceptions were CONFIRMED within feet of the station - feet which struggled to avoid dog mess and skipped ahead of scary eyed LOONIES staggering around streets that appeared to be lifted from a VERY low budget post-apocalyptic action film. My FEARS only grew as I got closer to the venue, which I could hear from a LONG way off. Hordes of red-eyed bleary faced crusties staggered around the entrance, and not the lovely sort of crusties whose dogs you meet on marches or at festivals, but the other sort, the ones who prefer heroin to cider.

I stood outside the building thinking "This is REALLY a bad idea, isn't it?" and rang the promoter. I had to stand outside for fifteen minutes or so in FEAR for my phone and myself before he eventually picked up, and told me that, as the sound system was STILL going on and as there'd been VIOLENCE towards the LAST person who'd tried to switch it off, MAYBE it was best to cancel it.

I didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed, so decided to try both, and stomped off back towards the station. There was a pub on the way, where there were a suspiciously LARGE number of scary looking men sitting at tables talking to a STREAM of other, SCARED looking men, who kept popping in to give them money. I'd diverted some pals from the "gig" to the pub, and together we drank a hasty pint - the barmaid, obviously a customer of the men at tables, seemed rather confused when I asked for beer.

Just as we were leaving the promoter arrived, apparently dropping in to tell us that he didn't have any money to buy himself a drink with... and hinting via eyebrow waggling that I could help solve this problem. After paying for a whole extra night's accommodation and being I was SO annoyed about the whole thing that I reacted by saying "Oh dear" and LEAVING. THAT is how annoyed I was, A LOT!

I got home to my B&B with at least an hour to go before the last train to Leicester would have left, STEAMING with IMPOTENT RAGE about the whole thing. As you may have noticed from other entries, doing slightly crappy gigs is something I actively ENJOY, as is NOT having to do SUICIDAL ones, and I'm hardly a stranger to slightly incompetent promoters for whom I travel many miles to do inevitably crappy gigs, but still. He made me go to Hackney!

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