Fiddlers Elbow, Camden, London, 20/09/09. Mark's Tour Diary.

Amazing, we managed to get parked and find the venue really easily for once, that makes a change. It’s the normal line up, we met at Sainsbury’s prior, with me driving the Brassneck crew to London. It’s the 'Fiddlers Elbow' tonight, plus it’s a Friday, so it should be pretty good.

As we walk in the pub seems a little strange with a separate bit for the locals near the ladies toilet. The stage looks ok and the sound chap seems cool. We are waiting for the other bands to turn up and you’ve guessed it Sid and Ben are battling away on the pool table as usual. Neil duly arrives and now we're a full set.

We take our turn to go up and soundcheck and as I'm setting up I look down at a note stuck on the front of the drumkit. It says that because the venue is providing the kit each band has to pay £5 and it will be a personal insult to the promoter if you do not. At first I think I guess that’s ok and then it hits home, hang on a minute we have trawled 2 ½ hrs through shit traffic, dragged a few people along spent money buying drinks, Sid and Ben might as well have bought the pool table and we are playing for free? What the f**K? Some venues really take the piss and to add insult to injury the kit is a piece of shit, 1 cymbal stand, battered drum heads, half a highat and no drum stool. At least if you’re charging £5 per band per night you should buy a decent kit and maintain it. As you can tell I was pretty pissed off about this......and then the sums started, on average you do 208 gigs per year have 4 bands per gig that’s £4160 talk about taking the piss. Anyway, moan over and yes because Brassneck are so nice we paid it anyway but next time I'm bringing my own kit out of principle.

First up was 'Just Like little People'. I really enjoyed their set and I thought they had good variety in the music.The female singer had a good stage presence too.

We then followed them and all went ok, I wouldn’t say we played great but we certainly went down ok.

'Long Live Viv' followed us and they were a great rocking band with great musicians.

And finally, Chris Cape came on, whose earlier start to the evening was a little disappointing because of their late arrival and then long soundcheck. However, I must admit they were a very talented bunch, although the music wasn’t completely to my taste. I don’t think anyone could deny they were very good at what they do.

So, it’s the end of the night again and the drive home opens in-depth discussions of the 'Beatles'. Big thanks to Frank for making the Gig!

Mark.