Last night's gig was dreadful. We were booked to play at venue we had never performed at before and as usual, there is always a slight trepidation before such a show. You're never quite sure what might be in store for you and more often than not you find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Last night was not like that.

Last night was awful. The pub was the only bar in a tiny village in Cumbria, the only other forms of entertainment being the Chruch Hall and incest. (Incidently they hold regular incest nights at the Chruch Hall, thus killing two birds with one stone, sharp instruments being too advanced.) We finished every song to an icy silence, with a hint of violence, apart from two very nice people who clapped at most songs. It would have been far better if we had just gone and performed in their living room. The pub had the ambience of the Slaughtered Lamb ('Stay on't roads lads. Keep off t'moors.) Don't get me wrong, it was nice pub with a thriving restaurant. It was just the people that sucked. (Blood, probably.)

The bulk of the audience was made up of, well, hillbillies. Young lads who spent the week up hills with sheep, staring at things and pointing at clouds.Time passes very slowly for them as even the sheep can outwit them and so their only chance of sexual relief is with each other and they can't undo their trousers as only their mother knows how to fasten them. Every Friday night they come down from the grassy slopes to drink cans of beer and gaze in awe at the electric lights. Everything that has a pulse they either want to fuck or kill and possibly both.

We played our arses off, determined not leave without giving it everything we had. We played the two longest 45 minute sets of our life, ending, drenched in sweat, to the kind of silence normally only found in space. We finished at 10.45pm and were in the van loaded up and ready to go at 11.05. That's taking down a full PA, and packing up two guitar amps, leads, three guitars and a harp amp. There was a sense of urgency.

We got out of there as fast as we could, sure that at any moment we'd be knocked unconscious and wake to find our selves inside a blazing whicker man while the locals, naked and daubed in wode frolicked and danced around us.

Promoters really should check venues out before they book artists, shouldn't they?

Let's just be thankful it wasn't a full moon.