Gig Review: 31st March 2006 - Brixton Mass

 

Oops. Left my laptop in the car back at home so spent a couple of hours after soundcheck driving back with Paul in the van to go and get it. Now with working clutch and fixed accelerator pedal, the van is feeling like a little less of a mobile deathtrap. Turned out to be a pretty good way to distract ourselves during the painful and barren wasteland of time between soundcheck and gig, in which we normally start worrying about whether the crowd is going to appreciate us or whether there'll be people there.

Would have been cool to see a bit more of the breakdance battles (so cool.. this guy was on his head and moving along looking like he was walking on the air, upside-down) but unfortunately we were scheduled at around the same time as this main event, so it wasn't until the second half of the set that the room really packed out. Success and relief with the new DnB tune, "Move Along" which I'd spent a while tweaking and improving over the past month but it seemed to go down well.. a few more tweaks needed to perfect methinks - really helps to see the crowd reaction to certain bits to confirm whether something works or not. As usual, the crowd were really going for it by the end and we've been asked back so good job done.

It really doesn't feel like this is our 27th gig with the band.. doesn't feel like that many to me at all. The reason I'm counting is because on asking Paul the question whether he had a good gig, he gave the response, "I didn't feel like I was enjoying it, I was just going through the motions." Whilst I'm pretty sure it just happened to be this particular gig, I'm waiting (and fearing) the inevitable time where all gigs start simply a matter of turning up and going through the motions. I'm guessing that each gig might well become less and less exciting for us but it'll be after the cumulation of hundreds of gigs we'll look back and only then realise it just never feels the same as the nervous first gigs.

I was at a gig last night watching a fairly inexperienced band who weren't anything amazing, but I found myself mesmerized - although there's a trade-off against what we think of as 'quality', there's a certain extra emotion there that you'll never see through the filter of the sanitized lens of the media and the music industry.