Well, its about half-four and I've had a days holiday which has involved decorating and other various jobs the missus has conjured up for me. So, to be honest getting out to play a gig was always gonna be a bonus.
So, I've loaded up with the breakables and get en-route to pick Kat up and then onto pick Sid up. Unfortunate for Sid I had to take the Subaru to fit everything in, I can tell he hates this car because he always gets out of it a different colour to what he got in. Anyhow, with the sat-nav on we headed into Basingstoke town and with Bens instructions of "its near McDonalds" we managed to find a back street car park fairly close by, which makes a change. Kat spotted the venue a mile off, surrounded by a blue haze and to my surprise it was a really nice venue. Once inside we met the owner and the promoter who seemed like cool chaps although both looked absolutely shattered. It was around seven at this point and yes, you've guessed it, there were no other bands there as of yet,as usual. Is it me or are we always the first band there?
Ben then turned up with his small roadie and Neil shortly followed. After a drink and around 1/2hr still no show on the other bands so we got up and did a sound check. House kit was ok compared to the last Fisher Price kit I played at Reading and the PA seemed ok too, apart from the monitors. After a blast of 'Sensitive...........' we got a good level, although we couldn't really hear the vocals, but out the front they were blasting so harmonies were gonna be, lets say a challenge. Still we have had worse (Monument comes to mind). 8.15 and still no show from the other bands so what-the-hell we decided to practice the out-tro to 'Depression......' which sounded ace and the sound chap commented he wanted to put us on later as we were far too good! 8.30 And finally the other bands turned up, firstly a local band who were setup and soundchecked pretty quickly, and then Dizzee Rascal and his crew turned up, a hippidy hop band from Swindon, which was a first and probably quite refreshing. However, it took them what seemed like forever to soundcheck, infact I think it was over an hour and the drummer decided to play the entire way through their soundcheck for no apparent reason which was more than annoying.
It was now coming up for ten and we were due on at 9.30 so we then went back to the stage for the setup, everyone seems pretty buzzed up for this so I am pretty sure its gonna be a good gig.
In light humour Ben decides to crack a joke about the soundcheck and then we are straight into 'Sensitive.......' which as usual went down a storm, highlights for me were 'Mess of contradictions' and 'Depression......', they got a great reception. Sid did his usual jumping around the stage whilst bumping/fondling Kat, Neil looked happy with his shades in front of a speaker as usual and Ben did his normal cool calm and collected thing! After the gig we had a line of people waiting for CD's which was great and in fact we didn't have enough to go around.
We stayed around to listen to 'Beatbullyz' who I thought were pretty good at what they did, they had a fairly good vocalist which was a surprise.
Hopefully we can play this venue on a Friday/Saturday night, which I think was mentioned, that would be awesome. Great venue and a great gig overall!
Mark.
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