So we played the silver bullet last night for the launch of Club Bandango. It’s funny around that area of Finsbury Park- there was no-where to pull up outside the venue as it looked out onto a bus garage and everywhere else was double lined red route. It might sound boring for you but this is a regular head scratcher for any band that carries their own sound around with them. We managed to illegally park around the corner and with the back doors of the van open, no traffic camera could clock us. With the help of the support bands we carried the gear in and we were greeted by a sound guy in a Black Flag t-shirt. The back of the stage was lined with fake Marshall cabinets, no doubt installed by Marshall (forgot to steal the knobs off them, which were real and cost a pretty penny!) to fool people into thinking that you need a wall of speakers to ‘Rock out’- therefore extending the myth that keeps them in business- don’t get me wrong, if Mr Jim Marshall wants to send us some free shit we will gladly use it ’til breaks- and Matt uses a Marshall Combo from the 80′s (previous owners- Simply Led) but that back wall reminded me of a mobile phone shop, where all the phones look real but they are just hollow replicas in case someone steals one- oh, I get it, thieves are to blame for the fakery on display! I’ll let them off, it’s just a bit of decor- chill….
First on was The Wild Animals, a local band I assumed as they mentioned doing some other gigs ‘down the road’ soon and they had an enthusiastic front row of good looking girls (girlfriends I assume) and smart lads, singing along. I watched the first song by the toilets with Steely Dan and despite some tuning problems they soon got underway. If I had to describe their sound I’d say a little Arctic’s with a splash of the Smiths but not too much of either and it’s only our first date so I’m not making judgments yet in fact what did amuse me was the fact that the headstock of the bass guitar didn’t hit the guitarist/singers face even though it was an inch away from it for the whole gig (it’s a small stage at the SB- those fucking fake cabinets don’t help!)
After their last song the DJ clambered onto the stage to spin some current and past indie offerings. I noted the Wombat’s ‘Tokyo‘ playing which has been on the radio a lot played alongside Libertines ‘Up The Bracket’. Dan and I chatted about the sheer indyness of that song, you could smell the tight leather jackets and all the crowd were singing the words after all these years.
Up next were Vaults but to be honest I was outside chatting to people as what which occurs at these gigs! So I can’t comment but the sound coming through the doors sounded a bit like the kings of leon on one song. I then went inside where I got chatting to a fella who’s been following us for a while and he spent ten minutes trying to describe an old song of ours that he wish we played still. ‘You know, the one that you used to headline with’ I was confused-
‘Headline with…oh you mean play last!’
‘Yeah’ he said, the acoustic one
‘We don’t have any acoustic songs in our set…oh you mean Curley song’ which I explained we haven’t played since the first few gigs- it was on our myspace for a while, in the beginning, but it had to make way for newer songs…
To be honest we’d like to play everything we’ve ever written but you don’t get slots that long at this stage- watch this space though fella.
Before we knew it it was 10:30pm and we were due on stage. The six of us squeezed between thefuckingmarshallstacks and the crowd
and launched in to ‘Islands In The Sky’. The crowd were digging it, a few familiar faces and quite a few unfamiliar ones. The lights were about 1 foot from our faces, blazing and adding to the atmosphere. The sound guy kept mining playing the bass to me and then pointing down with his hand- what the fuck am I meant to do? I’m singing! Eventually we got to the pause in the song- just before the drop so I could find out what was going on…it turned out the bass was too loud. So we turned it down and carried on. For the rest of the gig the sound guy continued this miming action, directed at me, even though the bass amp was behind Dan’s pans and miles away from where I was perched. We carried on and the crowd didn’t seem to think the bass was too loud! The set ran smoothly until a very drunk Matt Sharabang came crashing over the monitor, which was balanced on a beer crate, and sent drinks, microphones and nearly teeth flying everywhere. He was helped to his feet, offering us sips from his lucozade bottle of no-doubt paint stripping vodka! Shirts came off as the sweat poured and just as we were getting into it the promoter appeared in the crowd saying ‘you have to stop now…curfew’ the microphones got switched off so I had to shout ‘that’s it!’ to the warmed up crowd. They weren’t having that and started demanding more- I looked over at the promoter but he had his hands up and was giving me an ‘I can’t do anything about it’ look….we began a sorry decent of the stage when suddenly he reappeared with his thumbs aloft, so we got back into position. The microphones were still switched off but were soon on and we launched into Tropical.
Crowd went mental, everybody happy- Goodnight.
