Blog: Midlands Touring

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Back up to the Midlands yesterday, to ROCK. Dr N.Brown gave me a lift to Derby in the RAIN for an acoustic all-dayer at The Mist (and OH! if only Derby Legends Gorilla could reform to play there!), and I must say i THOROUGHLY enjoyed myself. All seemed to go jolly well, the totaliser nudged up very slightly, and then Rob did a set which was LOVELY but was all rather eclipsed by him playing "Black Eyes" at the end. This is a song from his new album that is, i reckon, utterly ACE - it's the same sort of Totally Brilliant Song as "54th and 3rd" was on his last album. I love it to bits, if only he didn't play JAZZ CHORDS all the time I would be NICKING it to play in my own sets.

Then we set off for Nottingham, arriving as requested at 5pm... to start soundchecking at about 6.30 and then spend AGES doing it. I felt really bad, as it felt like it was US taking ages and pushing all the other bands sets back, even though it was because the venue was still set up from the night before, when it had been a discotheque. Anyway, eventually we were sorted, and wandered off for some GRUB.

The gig bit started well, if half an hour late - Rob's set was again dead good, though largely ignored, and then The Liberty Ship came on and were GRATE. I've read reviews of them saying they were SuperIndie, and was expecting the sort of thing that PASSES for jingley jangle these days, but instead they were FANTASTIC. They ROCKED! They SWOONED! They made me grin a big daft grin - loads of bands THINK they sound this good. However, only The Liberty Ship actually DO.

We then discovered Emma wouldn't be able to make it to sing, which turned out not to be so bad... and then got in discussion with Marc and Giles, in their Johnny Domino GUISES, who both seperately assured me that their album was "nearly ready" and "you'll really like it!".

By this point things were running about half an hour late, which was a bit worrying as we were supposed to be on at 10pm, on a Sunday night, and wasn't helped when the next band hung around for ages before going on, then went over their time... and there wasn't much we could do about it, as the promoter was IN the band! It soon began clear that the night was pretty much arranged for them to play, and that the entire audience was their mates who'd come to support them, so when we eventually managed to get onstage pretty much everybody buggered off home, and those that were left had no interest in us at all.

Now, I hate it when bands complain about this sort of thing and blame the audience for not bothering to hear them - after all, it's the band's JOB to get new people to like them, and it WAS getting on for 11 o'clock on a school night, and people HAD come specifically to see their mates (and many of them didn't even know we were going to be on!). Still, I did feel a bit cheesed off that we'd put all this effort into getting ourselves together to play it, and travelling a long way to do so.

I really enjoyed our SET however - we played "City Centres" for the first time, and did a VERY LOUD INDEED version of "World Go Blind" that a weaker man than me would call EVISCORATING hem hem... and afterwards i felt INVIGORATED in the same way I used to when VOON used to clear the room. It was still a bit disappointing, especially as we didn't even get any Token Petrol Money for our troubles!

I don't know - maybe all the Good Gigs lately and the Modicum Of Acclaim we've had just lately has gone to my HEAD a bit. I REALLY worry about becoming the sort of dick I used to hate in other bands who EXPECT to be treating like the Endsleigh League Rock Stars they are in their heads, and so I'm conscious of the fact that, really, it was just a bit of a bad gig. I just feel a bit disappointed that after all this time we STILL end up doing that sort of gig, and I STILL end up apologising to my lovely band for dragging them along with me.

On the way home, however, we listened to the CD of New Stuff. It sounded GRATE. HOORAH!

posted 15/3/2004 by MJ Hibbett

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