My Exciting Life in ROCK (part 2): 14/3/2004 - The Social, Nottingham

< previous

next>

The trouble with doing good gigs and having good TIMES is that too much of it can turn you into a bit of a ROCK STAR. This is all well and good as long as things continue in this vein, but when the good times conclude the impact hits you DOUBLY BAD.

In the afternoon before this particular gig I'd played another, LOVELY, gig in Derby to a Sunday-afternoon DRUNK audience with sunshine and friends and all round PLEASANTRY. Myself and Francis Albert Machine, who'd also played, drove over to Nottingham full of expectations of more jollity, for LO! we were HEADLINING the show tonight. The only downside we could see was that we had to be there to soundcheck at 5pm, but hey, that's the burden of being the HEADLINE ACT.

Being a band of Responsible Adults with Management Skills all of The Validators were there PROMPTLY at five o'clock on the dot... only to find that the venue had not been touched since it closed as a discotheque at 2.20am, so we had to hang around for ninety minutes while the soundman (who, from the extreme SLOWNESS and GRUMPINESS with which he went about his task, had clearly BEEN there until 2.20am, and may indeed have been sleeping in the toilets ever since) lugged lumps of equipment around. When that was eventually sorted out we embarked upon the LONGEST soundcheck I have ever had the misfortune to be part of. I normally like to get these done QUICK - the sound always changes ANYWAY when it's SHOWTIME, especially if a couple of other bands have been on and moved amps, fiddled with drums, and changed settings, but mostly I like to get these done QUICK because there's PALS I'd much rather be talking to and BEERS I'd MUCH rather be drinking. Some bands REVEL in extensive soundchecks, but I find them PAINFUL, and as we stood there for about HALF AN HOUR while the sound guy tried to get things working I felt intensely conscious of the other bands who were stood around GLARING at us. "It's not our fault!" I wanted to tell them... if only the microphone had been working.

FINALLY we got everything sorted out and LEAPT off stage as quickly as we could, so that everyone else could get sorted out. Despite ours, and the other bands', best efforts, the evening still started half an hour late. The audience didn't seem to mind though - Frankie Machine and The Liberty Ship (two GRATE bands that I was really excited about seeing) came on, played BRILL sets, and were largely ignored by a growing throng who had clearly come to a) see the third band b) CHAT. It was a bit upsetting but, as I always say, people have paid to get in and so can do what they LIKE. It's not an easy thing to think but it is TRUE, and is also a LOT less difficult to cope with when it's someone else who's suffering.

We were still running about half an hour late by the time they'd finished, with another band still to go on, and I was getting a bit worried - we were supposed to be playing at 10pm, which is risky enough on a Sunday night without getting any later. I was also a bit PEEVED that the third band weren't exactly making much of an effort to get on stage - Frankie and The Liberty Ship had DASHED to get on and off to try and bring things back on schedule, but the next lot didn't appeared bothered at ALL, happy to hang around chatting to their friends rather than GETTING ON WITH IT. Why wasn't the Promoter telling them to hurry up?

It was then that I realised that the promoter was IN the third band, and that the entire audience was his PALS who he was happily chatting to, and had been doing throughout the first two bands. He EVENTUALLY tore himself away, gathered up his band, and got onstage... where they played for TWICE as long as advertised, and then did ENCORES! ARGH!

By the time WE were finally able to scramble onto the stage we were nearly an HOUR late. At this stage, at gone 11pm on a Sunday, you'd EXPECT quite a few people to have to go home, but even we were surprised to find almost the ENTIRE AUDIENCE leaving. I'd been alarmed, talking to someone beforehand, to discover that he was completely unaware that their even WAS a fourth band on stage, and from the way the departing crowd kept looking over the shoulders QUIZZICALLY at us as they flew out, I guess he wasn't the only one - it later turned out that most of that pretty much the whole crowd had been WORKMATES of the promoter who'd come to see his band and then go home.

We thus went on and played a VERY truncated set to an audience of TWO people. This itself wouldn't have been too bad if we could have HEARD ourselves, but our half hour soundcheck might as well have been five seconds of us standing in the pub next door, as it just sounded like a bloody racket.

Now, I'm sure by this stage you're thinking "What a ghastly prima-donna! BOO HOO! So people didn't want to see you? OH DEAR! I suppose you think now that you've been ON THE RADIO that you should be carried aloft on the shoulders of massed fans while a LACKEY plays your guitar for you? GET LOST, CAPTAIN SHOWBIZ!" and you would have some justification for thinking this. We WERE treated in a bit of a crappy way - ESPECIALLY when, at the end of the gig, the promoter refused to even give us the token petrol money we'd been promised, as, he claimed, not enough people had turned up - but it's not like it hadn't happened before.

The thing is, there was a large part of me thinking "I was live on the BBC the other day! I thought that meant I didn't have to DO this sort of gig any more?", and there was a slightly LARGER part of me feeling disgusted with myself for thinking that way. Outweighing BOTH of these, however, was the part of me that wished I hadn't dragged The Validators along and put them through it all, and then finally entering the competition as SUPREME VICTOR was the part of me that KNEW the end result would be YEARS and YEARS of Validators taking the piss out of me for booking it.

These last fears, I have to report, have been proved over time to be well-founded.

When we'd finally packed up we slunk out, the venue owner locking the doors behind us, and went our separate ways WEIGHED DOWN with the feeling that maybe our hopes of future ROCK ADVENTURES were to be denied. Little did we know, we were on the very BRINK of some of the most RIDICULOUSLY GRATE ESCAPADES we had EVER been involved with!

< previous

next>