The Gardening Club, Covent Garden, London, 05/11/08. Mark's Tour Diary

"Tescos or Sainsburys ?" - not a normal decision you think you would have to make when going to a gig. Never-the-less Brassneck manage to make it a complicated one. Anyway, after finally deciding to meet at Sainsburys I drove to pick Kat and Sid up, followed by Ben at Sainsburys. It's already starting to get dark and after around 5 minutes both Kat and Ben are fast asleep in the back catching flies, whilst myself and Sid are humming along to the Manics in the front.

We are soon in London and as usual its grid locked. Why is it takes 1 hour to do 1 mile ? Sensing we are getting close both Ben and Kat wake up and amazingly we get a space about 2 minutes away from the venue. Well, I say 2 minutes but Sid decides to give us the guided tour of the block and bring us back to were we started where we find that the venue was right on the corner where we had parked ! Doh ! Bouncers on the door ? Blimey, that's a first ! As we travel down the 3 flight staircase both Ben and Sid are admiring themselves in the huge mirrors. Once downstairs it looks like a really nice place, moody lighting, well laid out and lots of seating.

There is a band setting up on stage and we take the chance to grab a drink whilst Ben finds out the score. We are going to be on about 7.30, which is ok because to be fair the place already has quite a few people in it. The first band fail to do a soundcheck because of a lack of bassist, so the other Rolling Stones tribute band get up on stage and begin to play. Not sure what to think of these guys, I think I'll leave it until I see their set. Then we get told by the promoter we are up next to soundcheck, but I think none of us heard her as all the Brassneck men stood there with our jaws dropped at her. Not often we get hot promoters ! So, the stage is cosy but still bigger than some places we have played and it's a bit of a struggle for me to get behind the drum kit because it's backed up against the wall. Still, we soundcheck with "Set my alarm for 7" which sounds pretty good and I think the soundmen are doing a great job, a few adjustments and a verse of "Stupid what ?" and we are ready to go. I thought we were going to start after that but we are then told to give it 15 minutes, which is even better as its already gone half past seven.

So, we are then called up and as once again we make our way up on stage, the promoter introduces us and we burst into "Sensitive but a bit of a 'rong 'un", all goes well throughout and we seem to get a fairly good reception from the crowd. We finish up with "Depression is a young persons art form" and it sounds ace, plus Ben gets in there with his harmonica early after seeing this trick with one of the other bands earlier on in their soundcheck !

So, the second band goes up, I have no idea what they are called something about gentlemen I think ? (they were actually called 'The Shoestrung' Mark, the last band were called 'The Leisurely Gentlemen - Ed) Anyhow, the singer/guitarist and guitarist both look like some form of tribute to Mick Jagger and they have that normal skinny indie kids look about them. I wasn't that impressed with them as musicians to be honest and it seemed more about the image and what they looked like than anything else. While Brassneck, well they were more interested in the large buffet platters that Nelly had ordered. This would probably be why none of us look like skinny indie kids. So now our street cred was completely ruined, it couldn't have got any worse, well at least until we ordered another batch and a plateful of olives.

Third band up and once again I have no idea what they are called (see above - Ed) I do remember signing their mailing list though. They seemed pretty good, only let down by their singer who just didn't really stand out, although they had some good songs and a good solid sound. They also commented on stage about liking the second band, which kind of made a statement to me that they hated us, pricks. This was emphasised when they finished by the singer saying to Ben how much he liked us and meaning not a single word of it.

We had a longish journey back so we packed up and made our way out but Sid wasn't gonna be happy until he had flirted his life away with the promoter. 2 minutes later Sid appears smiling "2 kisses, she kissed me twice", "bastard" Ben proclaims. Back in the car and the journey on the way back is much livelier with everyone awake. We take the piss out of each other as usual and say a farewell at Sainsburys, or was it Tescos ?

Mark.