Blog: Loud Life In Lewisham

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In years to come people will talk of last night as The Night That The Pub Quiz Paradigm Was Formulated - surely an evening UP THERE with Woolton Village Hall in its importance to ROCK HISTORY - but all I knew when i arrived in Distant Lewisham was that i was a) looking forward to another good night at The Fox & Firkin abd b) a bit tired, as I'd had to WALK to Charring Cross due to Overcrowding On The Tube.

Mr S Hewitt and Mr J Yeah were both in place and we were rapidly joined by a dizzying variety of other lovely people, from ALL SORTS of different aspects of life. It was bloody lovely - i kept bumping into people I had no idea would be there! HOORAH! There was even a group of The Young People who'd been to see us LAST time we played there and had come again ON PURPOSE! You can't ask for more than that really, can you?

The fun continued first of all with a RECORDING SESSION, finally getting Mr T Eveleigh's missing line recorded for Dinosaur Planet. It was a BIG TICK! We then did a delightful INTERVIEW for Kooba Radio, during which CERTAIN MEMBERS of the group may have gone on JUST A BIT MORE THAN NECESSARY, often featuing a slightly dubious WELSH ACCENT for no reasonable reason, to such an extent that OTHER MEMBERS were forced to GRAB the diary and READ OUT upcoming gigs in a sensible manner, just to get SOME commone decency into the discussion. What can I say? I'd had a pizza, i was a bit excited!

Brilliantly Ms J Lockyer had been booked as our support, and she was as ever ACE. I've not seen her in this sort of ROOM before - the Fox is a big old pub and entry is always FREE to gigs, so you get all kinds of people wandering in mostly for a BEER, and it was GRATE seeing her MASTER the room and have everybody joining in with stuff like "Belly Button" or, indeed, BLUSHING GENTEELY at "Chocolate Cake" which, i suddenly realised, was PURE FILTH. Shocking!

It was all lovely, EXCEPT for a table of people sitting right at the front who INSISTED on TALKING REALLY LOUDLY THROUGHOUT. Jenny was very nice about it and TRIED to kindly stop them, and Mr T Eveleigh and others went over to gently ask them to stop but they didn't and, INDEED, arsed about going "Ooh look at us we're so naughty for talking". A LOT.. We'll not get into they whys and wherefores of this - obviously there is no NEED to now, what with the issue being SOLVED and everything - but i will say that it was all a BIT ANNOYING and i thought to myself "I may have to DEAL with this."

I had a quick word with the sound man beforehand and he agreed to a) turn us UP a bit to compete b) turn OFF the smoke machine but c) turn it BACK ON AGAIN during "For The Fate Of The Earth". This latter he did do, and it was AMAZING!

Anyway, we started the gig with a bit more RAMBLING at the start (featuring an impersonation of D Cameron as CORNISH, for some reason) and it was HO! for the show. My dears it was HEAPS of fun - like in Manchester before Christmas we were on much later than we were used to and so had had a couple of beers and were LOOSE, which made it all the more fun for us and, i hope, the people watching. There was LARKING ABOUT, there was CHEERS and LARFS and all sorts, it was EXCELLENT!

The talking - SHOUTING - continued and, once again, Mr Hewitt proved his qualifications for ROCK by not being SWAYED by it (really, he is excelling in the Gig Behaviour MODULE, he should expect high marks in his Final Assessment which should go some way to making up for his poor performance in the Bitching About Other Bands After The Gig MODULE in which, frankly, he needs to up his game) but it was SO LOUD that after a while I had to stop and POLITELY, CALMLY, address them directly. I was really honestly trying to be NICE, i HATE it when people on stage stop to ask people to be quiet, and don't want to ALIENATE people, so explained jovially that maybe they would like to move elsewhere, as it would be easier to hear each other. Half of the group was sat - RIGHT AT THE FRONT - with their backs to us anyway (FOR GOODNESS SAKE), so it wasn't like they'd miss anything.

It continued louder and louder though, to the point where a song with both of us singing THROUGH A PA SYSTEM was BLOTTED OUT ENTIRELY by one of them SHOUTING at another one. I must confess that at this point I became enraged, and shouted directly at them to shut up. They were SO LOUD and so wrapped up in themselves that THEY DIDN'T EVEN HEAR ME so we BOTH shouted - and apologies for the language - "YOU! SHUT THE FCUK UP!"

I should re-state that this was AFTER I'd asked mega politely AND several people including BAR STAFF had been over to ask the same (at various levels of politeness), but still, i didn't like it. I felt bad... right up until one of the party turned round, for the first time, and shouted "Don't Swear!"

"I'll stop fcuking swearing when start shutting the fcuk up" i replied. And yes, IT FELT GOOD.

You'd think, at this point, most people would leave IN DISGUST wouldn't you? But no. They bought more drinks and carried on BUT by now we had all VENTED and were into the LOUD BITS (with, as aforementioned, SMOKE MACHINE) and the rest of the audience all seemed a) to agree with us b) eager to hear the story so, as I say, it went pretty quickly back to GOOD TIMES. I really really hate having to do that sort of thing though, I still feel awful about it, to be honest - there were some friends there who hadn't seen me that often, and I'd hate them to think I'm the sort of person to DO that sort of thing, who think himself SO IMPORTANT to demand SILENT RESPECT. Afterwards people were all MOST supportive and agreeing with the actions, but still - it's unpleasant for something like that to become The Big News.

But yes, it WAS fun and everyone seemed to have had a good time - the badges certainly went, even to the regulars at the back of the room, one of whom seemed OVERJOYED to find that yes, I HAD heard "War Of The Worlds" and indeed was paying partial HOMAGE to it. We basically SWANNED ABOUT a bit talking to people about how good it had been and everything - someone asked me the other day why i play so many gigs in Lewisham, and the answers are a) they keep asking me but mostly b) it's ALWAYS a good gig, ALWAYS with a lovely audience. And despite - maybe partly BECAUSE of - Occurences, this was very VERY much the case last night. HOORAH!

posted 7/1/2011 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

Good work that man!
posted 7/1/2011 by @MoreUtterPiffle

Nice! I wish you'd filmed it
posted 8/1/2011 by http://ftoing.blogspot.com

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