First gig, and our best show in London by, ooh, about 100 miles - there were more than seven people there for a start. Smallest venue we've ever played - we had to set Dave's drums up outside the toilet door, almost blocking access to the DJ booth as well, and Jim's guitar was in a corridor on the other side of some concrete benches from the tiny stage, so we practically had to wave at him from across the room. Bit of a concern, but the sound ended up really good actually. We'd been planning a collaboration with Mark Gardener on a Ride song for weeks, and soundchecked with an instrumental of 'Leave Them All Behind', which apparently sounded great. Unfortunately on the night Mark had had a rubbish day and was exhausted, so the collaboration never materialised. Last time we planned a cover (of our friends the Half Rabbits), technical problems stopped us from doing that, so I think we're pretty much doomed in terms of ever successfully doing a cover.
The show had sold out in advance thanks to some sterling work from Idle Fret, the promoters, who got Mark Gardener onto 6music that morning to plug the show some more, and the night was a screening of the Oxford music documentary Anyone Can Play Guitar, plus someone from the old school of Oxford music (Mark) and someone newer (that'd be us then). Several familiar faces from Oxford were down and the venue was packed with an attentive audience watching the documentary - it was actually great to feel like being in the middle of a celebration of Oxford music, transposed to somewhere near Oxford Street.
Unfortunately due a practice the night before, two gigs the previous weekend, and commuting to London for work every day, I was totally exhausted and actually fell asleep at the back of the venue, only to be woken up by Jim during Mark Gardener's set, which wasn't ideal preparation but hey ho we are the HERBAL TEA of rock n roll bands. We were incredibly well-received, with some lovely feedback afterwards, and got an encore, which in London is frankly unheard of (for us)... we played a full 45 minutes with only two major fuckups. First I managed to unplug all the synths out of the DI with my massive feet during 'Then Venice Sank', cutting all the synth sounds... and Mike turned off his amp before the encore, with it only warming up enough to make some sound about 30 seconds into the last song. Oops. We're also the worst ever band at marketing ourselves - I forgot to mention our next London gig the following week, and we didn't have any CDs for sale or even any flyers.
Lift home with Mr Jon Spira to Oxford was massively welcome, along with the bizarre conversation about Disney films with Mark Gardener and Mark Cope.
All Aboard The Andrea Doria
