Gig Review: Friday 20th April - Black Bar, Portsmouth

Although only a couple of hours from London, I find all our south coast gigs so much more chilled and less stressful. So much so that when the news came about that the Havana Bar had double booked the place, we didn't seem too bothered. (Or perhaps the thought was more, 'heck, at least we haven't just driven to Glasgow'.) Quite how these places manage to do that is a mystery - it's not too hard, you have a diary, you write things in on the appropriate date and if you have two things there happening at the same time at the same place, you know there's a problem.

As the dubious rock/function band that had trumped us put out something that was trying to resemble The Ramones, we politely declined sharing the line-up with them without giving a reason why. Stu inadvertently revealed to the venue manager why this was about 30 seconds later by exclaiming, "These guys fucking suck!" whilst she was still in listening range.



Elliot (above) - the guy that asked us down for the show, being the legend he is expressed his sincerest apologies, and somehow managed to find us another show just round the corner to play. With the sun going down and a couple of beers already in us, we were in two minds as to whether to call it off and head home or to play, especially since it would be a hassle without proper soundcheck. The south coast attitude (why-the-hell-not?) prevailed and we headed on down to the ominous sounding Black Bar. (When do you EVER get offered a gig in the same town when one's just cancelled? It's fate calling...)



Two good things about the Black Bar:

1. The backstage/dressing area is much more spacious and cool than the majority of venues we play, even if you do share it with the rats. Hanging out with rats is preferable than trying to hang out with The Egg backstage, for example. (Yes.. Still holding a grudge against them for their manager throwing us out of the backstage area)

2. The standing/dancing capacity is about 30, so we rammed it - and there's nothing better than hitting a tightly packed crowd who just weren't expecting anything like us at all..



And that's the story of how we ended our run of poor/dodgy gigs with a show that almost didn't happen. We sold more CDs/vinyl at this show than we have at any other show, and it's the second closest we've come to being mobbed/raped after a gig.

Thanks loads to Elliot - a gentleman and a real cool fella who looked after us proper on the night.

Gig Review: 14th April - Clockwork, Bristol

There's a fine line between the work aspect and the social aspect of a gig, and although yes it's a party, we're there to work. And I'm sure everyone has certain friends they wouldn't ever dream of taking to work. Dan - we do love you, I'm so glad you didn't end up shitting in the van, I hear you owe Stu a tub of margarine and some foot lotion. I think you owe apologies to the drummer from The Anomalies for vomiting on his snare drum and then vehemently denying it. Also, sort your fucking life out.


Kimba gets his top off on-stage for the second time in memory. The rest of us probably would more often except I'm too skinny to pull it off and the others are either too fat and/or have comedy man-boobs. Thanks for the photos Kate.


It's another one of those shows where the audience slips away before we manage to get to the stage. (We went on at 4am so not too many surprises there) I'm starting to like to think of ourselves as being the bands' band. Seems like it's only ever the other bands that end up seeing us.

Gig Review: 8th April - Cargo All-Dayer

One name added to the e-mail list. Thanks to the lovely Akari above!

Rob from Soundcrash (Promoter): "Why did I ever think that putting on 14 bands might be a good idea?"

It's like watching anything untoward but inevitable happen, except this really is in slow motion. Like the fall of buttered toast to the floor or drifting on black ice - watching the crowd disperse as the hours tick on by is the same, there's just nothing you can do but observe it happen with the sick feeling in your gut, a hope that it's not really going to happen, but possessing the knowledge that there's nothing you can do about it.

Still we're very, very grateful for the few that did stick around for our shortened set, especially to those from the other acts that saw us in soundcheck and hung about for the 12 hours to see the main set. You may be pleased to know that it was not the same sound engineer as last time we did Cargo - although I would have liked to have seen how he'd have coped with 14 bands. The guy tonight (Stuart I think) was fantastic.

Glastonbury

With a couple of weeks away from the day job for all of us, it's been time to knuckle down and make stuff happen. The others are on the phone/in the studio/e-mailing, and me mostly getting to work on the new website (see work-in-progress at http://subsource.co.uk/home/). Bam, out of the blue, an e-mail comes in asking us if we'd like to play Glastonbury. Score. Dance Lounge: Saturday 10pm. For an act with no label and a rising profile, it's a dream come true. Glastonbury for free, and no sitting on the telephone all day.

We sent a CD off a couple of months ago and forgot about it. It almost didn't get sent because I was having problems with my printer, and Nelly lost the first CD pack I gave him to post..

Aside from hitting bigger stages at Glasto - the next landmark shows that would get us excited would be Fabric, Glade fest (my personal fave) and of course, we'll see how long it takes before we get our first international booking. Glasgow doesn't count, on several levels. Bring on the Fuji Rock Festival.

More exciting news - there are about 500 of our amber promos in public circulation (and about another 500 in my lounge) and finally last week, somebody got round to putting it on a torrent! (As mentioned in a previous blog, I'm chuffed somebody took the time to do it, rather than be pissed off - although this time, we own the copyright). They're not seeding right now, but I'm keeping a beady eye..

http://www.mybittorrent.com/info/347144/