Sacred Mother Tongue Tour Diary
By Darrin South – Vocals

Day 14 – Club 85, Hitchin
So I call Miller from ‘Imicus’ to find out what time we need to load in to the venue, as it is one of their local haunts.  He tells me ‘about half 6’, which sounds late but totally possible.  Only when we arrive at half 6, everyone is stressing and I get it in the neck that we’re an hour and a half late.  Seems Miller himself likes to arrive around half 6, late; as any real rock star should I guess.  But I was driving the bus with all the gear in and all the other lads so… cheers cuntface. 
Anyway with that (minor) hitch out of the way we load in and set up.  I’ve been advised that the sound man is very good at his job, but can be a bit odd.  I think the way I’d describe him is ‘hard work’.  Now don’t get me wrong, he did a great job and the sound was in fact really good in the end.  But it was quite a moment trying to get it in the right area with this dude.  With sound guys, it’s a bit like the same feeling you get with a car mechanic; you have to try your best to keep on their friendly side, but you still get the feeling they’re gonna fuck you either way.
The place is filling up nicely as ‘Our Divide’ and ‘Glass Artery’ play the opening sets.  I’m having a few beers and catching up with Mark from ‘Scar My Eyes’, who actually bought me a beer that I never got the chance to return.  So cheers Mark, I owe you one bud.  As ‘ Imicus’ take the stage, the rig kicked up a gear and suddenly sounded even better.  Good for them really since they organized the show!  They played a great set although they did have to overcome a few technical hitches.  Namely Miller’s mic going off completely at one point, and a couple of stick losing occasions put the pressure on a bit.  I think the lads were a bit hard on themselves as it was in fact a really good show and they rose above the problems without any downers.
So it’s time for us and I’m really happy with the turn out.  It’s been steadily busy all night and no one seems to have fucked off… which sometimes happens when there are loads of bands on.  I’m actually outside with Mark again chatting shit as I hear our intro track start playing.  Shit!!! Better move my arse I reckon!  Trouble is, I’m feeling a bit pissed by this point and I’m totally unprepared to walk straight on stage.  No time for bitchin about it so I wander up there and start moving about before the vocal comes in.  This is my only time to compose myself for the show, so I’m struggling to take my T-shirt off and reveal the stage standard wife beater vest.  This is not going too well as I’m a bit pissed, my Tee is sticking to my vest and I’m almost rendered topless.  Anyway, I get it under control and just in time for the vocal of ‘Wake Up Call’.  The show goes on to be a real good one.  The crowd are great and the show closes down to a big cheer for more. 
As we’re loading the van outside and collecting our thoughts, we’re met by the local pisshead and his dog.  Or so we would all assume from his lack of teeth and slurry dialect telling us tales of rock n roll and the like.  Lee later tells me that he knows him as a friend of local celebrity Carl McCoy  [Fields of the Nephilim], and he met him through our manager Rob.  Now it makes sense… he was banging onto me for ages about Transcend records as if he was the MD.  I just thought he was a nutter!



Day 15 – Athletic Club, Rushden
Rushden has always been one of those places with a scene, and around here the scene has been Grindcore for as long as I can remember.  It’s a crazy town where you have a total divide between chavs and metal- heads, so naturally, the metal kids are off their heads and always go crazy at the local gigs; always looking for something heavier and more brutal than the last band.  So obviously Grindcore is their thing, Deathcore a close second, then I guess straight Death metal, Thrash and so on.  It’s no surprise then, given our style that the people in Rushden never really liked us in the early days.  I’m not sure when this changed, or why but nowadays we always have a great gig and opinions seemed to have definitely moved in our favour.  I think it has to be said that this is probably down to one person in the most part.  Chett is like the coolest guy in town, everyone knows him, the girls wanna fuck him and the boys wanna be him.  It’s easy to see why when you first meet him as like I said, he’s a very cool cat.  Not to mention he sings for local band ‘Bill Snide’, who are also one of the coolest bands in Rushden and are main support for us tonight.  Chett has been building our profile around these parts for some time now, and his friends have become our friends.  People now dig the band and I think it’s worth noting that we owe a personal thanks to Chett for this.
We’ve traveled separately tonight so naturally Lee and I were on time; Josh and Andy were both late.  That said, a nice quick set up, then sound check and we’re chilling with a cold one.  There are five bands on tonight so it’s gonna be a long, metal assault.  I kinda missed the first band as they were on earlier than I thought, and I was outside catching up with a bunch of different people.  Notably all the boys from ‘Nekkrosis’ have come down tonight so it’s cool to catch up with them before I head inside for the second band. 
It’s the first time I’ve seen ‘Held Beneath’ which is odd because not only do they all drink in my local watering hole, they are also right up my street in terms of their music.  I’ve heard from someone else that they’re a straight Death Metal band, and I always check out the Death Metal bands for fear of missing a good one.  Fuck me I’m not disappointed at all, in fact, blown the fuck away!  There are so many bands out there that can’t play, or don’t really have there feet about them so it’s really refreshing to see some raw talent, brute force, no apologies metal.  I’d put their music somewhere between ‘Decapitated’ and ‘Cannibal Corpse’ and I’m fuckin lovin it!!!
It’s getting later and I’m on a driving night tonight, which means my beer intake is a little slack…  Well, a lot slack really, so the night is dragging on a bit and I wanna get on stage before I fall asleep.  Luckily ‘Bill Snide’ are just about to go on and wake me back up again.  These boys are a great band and tick all the boxes for a Rushden band.  It’s kinda like ‘Rushden-Core’ or ‘Rush-Core’ if you like.  They’re like the perfect group of angry teenagers that really, really needed to get in a band, before they started nicking cars, taking smack and starting a cult of church burning.  Everyone loves ‘Bill Snide’ and they have a brilliant show, as they have done every single time I’ve watched them.  Did I mention the people in Rushden are fucking crazy?  Their pits go mental, with people doing back flip stage dives, two steps, picking up change etc, a wall of death, speaker stacks being knocked over and to finish off, a complete pit of what looked like a scene from WWE, as every fucker seemed to be wrestling for our entertainment.
I’m not gonna bore you with all the in’s and out’s of our show, but needless to say, the pits carried on doing what they do, the speaker stacks just about survived the mayhem, and there were choruses of people singing our songs which is always really humbling.  Not to mention the amount of merch we sold that night and the sheer number of SMT shirts out in the crowd… very cool indeed.  We played to a great crowd who entertained us as much as the other way round I reckon, and all in all it was an awesome show.  One of the best on the tour in fact, we had a lot of fun so thanks a lot Rushden, miss you already.