Billericay. A small ancient town, in the south east of England. Home to many shops and things and stuff beyond all imagination. As it goes, I couldn't find anything of interest beyond, well maintained leisure facilities, and adequate parking Let alone any kind of music scene. But then, this is not unlike any small town in this part of the country.
Bearing this in mind we ventured in our overloaded estate down the A120. Destination, The White Hart public house, Billericay.
With our sceptical hats on we arrived to find a town pub, filling up with gents ready to watch an England vs. Croatia pre-warm up friendly world cup football extravaganza on 8 Big screen TV's dotted liberally around the freshly painted walls. Not a promoter or leather clad, pierced, ageing rocker in sight (the sort you would normally find propping up the bar at 5 on a Wednesday afternoon in most music venues). There were however, two "ladies" in the gardenette/pub car park, who had "popped in for a quick drink and ad free bottalls already". When I strolled outside for a cigarette I was apprehended…
"Allo"
"Hello", I replied
"Are you ere to play the music?" She replied, whilst making a strumming gesture with her hands as though I was a little special and needed the function of a guitar explained to me in layman's terms. Either that, or she was a little special and that's how she remembers it. Hmmm…
Anyway, despite all this, people were smiling and the beer was cheap, so we starting piecing together the krypton factor-worthy drum kit, that only drummers know how to work, and awaited instruction.
We were booked to be the headline band, which can be a dangerous spot to furnish. There are a couple of scenarios when headlining somewhere new. Either everyone in the pub gets quite lucid after a few bevies and is up for a dance and a laugh and everything goes great, or, and this is what every performer hopes doesn't happen, the support bands bring a crowd of their friends who leave just after they've played. This can be a problem when playing in London because of trains, buses, work the next day etc etc. I know this because I and most people I know are guilty of this crime. Unfortunately, and I neglected to mention this earlier (in aid of making this point), but we have played here before and committed said crime. A completely different scenario but the fact remains. We opened an all day festival in the pub car park to around 30 people and promptly buggered off! Legitimate reason though. Tim had to get back to relieve the babysitter sitting on his baby. So, we were due some payback on this occasion and I was expecting the pub to empty as we started our set, while the promoter sits back on his bar stool and smiles smugly.
This sort of paranoia fuelled behaviour is a regular thing before gigs for me. I'm not sure where it has stemmed from, but have been playing gigs now since this first time I stood up at the school battle of the bands and struggled though a rendition of park life by blur before sheepishly walking off stage to a barrage of heckles from a room full of 14 year old boys. Since then I have played many wonderful gigs. Some with much praise. So, if anyone reading this is a psycho-behavioural analyst then please…answers on a postcard. Actually, this is 2008, so just email me. Or phone me…
Sorry. I digress. After half hour or so, Pete, the promoter turned up looking a little dishevelled with a black eye. And we all said hey and got on with setting up and sound-checking. All went smoothly apart from one tiny detail that was set to throw us all out of whack! There didn't appear to be any fold back.. Oh…ummm…if you don't know what I mean, fold back is sound that is passed back in the direction of the performer allowing them to hear what they're performing so they don't cock it up. This is why, when you watch 'X factor' or other generic 'fashion-a-star-from-Swindon' type shows, they never have any speakers facing them. So, when they have finally wasted 8 weeks of their life to get on a stage to be humiliated in front of the worlds biggest wankers at the Birmingham NIA, they can't hear themselves and sound bloody awful. It makes good tele.
Oh. I mentioned Pete (the promoter) had a black eye. No idea why and no-body wanted to ask, so this remains a mystery. Maybe he hasn't told anyone. Maybe he was beaten up by a girl? Maybe he accidentally fell over whilst in the depths of some kinky sex game and landed eye-first on a big rubber cock? We'll never know!
Anyway, there was no fold back, and we couldn't hear a thing on stage apart from Ryan smashing the shit out of his drums as he does in his own eloquent way. This was going to be a problem. I knew it, we all knew it, but the football was about to start and the pub, now brimming with anxious football types was getting restless, so we had to settle. On this occasion for some reason, my mind was relaxed. I thought to myself 'so what?' If I can't hear it, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to care. Out of sight, out of mind' Ryan obviously thought differently and suggested using a guitar amp from the PA, but it was too late…The football kicked off and we were at the mercy of the English team and their thirst to win. If they win, happy faces. If they lose, everyone goes home. Simple as that.
It was decided as 22 men chased a pigs bladder around some grass, that the young singer-songwriter Gergia Strand shall play in half time and the support will start as the game finishes. We were on around half tenish.
She was good. Quite young and inexperienced but had that mockney Kate Nash thing, that's popular at the moment, going on. Very nice. Perfect for half time during an England game….poor girl. That takes some balls. The girl had balls! She got a good enough reception, but you got the feeling the large majority of the people there wanted to hear the half time analysis in which Gary (known more for his crisp campaign than his football skills) Linekar and some other old ex-soccer dude give their needless opinion on the game so far. Damn shame. I felt sorry for the girl, but not that much.
Finally it all finished and England won much to the delight of the next band as they would get to play the national anthem in a ska-punk fashion with trumpets and anarchic vocals. As you can imagine, the pub joined in. Great music, great times. I missed all this. I was in the toilet. I returned to a comic driven barrage of noisy well put together skate punk music. Adapting covers from artists such as Shakira and Europe, they delivered a loaded energetic set with various witty ramblings from the front man. Really great fun. A Perfect set up for our band.
Now it was our turn and there were a fair few people there. More than you would expect to don a local pub on a Wednesday night in Billericay. We played, and as expected, we couldn't hear a damn thing. I would press the keys on my mini synth and….nothing. We hadn't the time to look at each other in bewilderment as we had a gig to play. As a mark to our professionalism, we carried on regardless and settled into it. It is very satisfying to what you do and do it well. It's even satisfying when you get praise for it. Afterwards, we got a great reception and got chatting to the other band, who, I might add, are bloody great blokes! It's quite rare after gigging, that you fuse such swift bonds with other bands. There is the usual camaraderie between musicians, but these guys were too easy to have a laugh with.
After packing up the car and planning future events in Clacton involving parties with crowds and girls and hilarity, and shaking the hands of everyone involved with the evening, and downing the last of the pint, we headed home, content and proud.
Then Ryan ruined it with an extendable fork.
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