With your lovelight shining, every clouds gotta silver lining, so hold me close don’t let me go... OR... How we learnt to juggle monkeys whilst constructing a full size Leggo model of our tourbus, complete with lifelike caricature of Aussie Geoff our driver butt nekkid and trussed up like a Christmas Turkey. Oh No, it’s Selwyn Froggit in Belfast.
The Limelight Club to be precise! Now don’t take this the wrong way, but if top twenty popular music combos were meant to play in shoeboxes then we’d all be down Dolcis’s every night of the week, enjoying the Indie sounds and ugly girl / bloke appearance of King Adora. Am I right or am I trying to juggle just one monkey too many. The people who worked there were lovely apart from the manager, more about that later. They served us up a big fried breakfast as soon as we walked in, which went down a treat seeing as several of us had only eaten sandwiches the previous day, Miami Dave being one of those sandwich eaters. Believe me that boy needs to eat plentiful and regular meals. It ain’t easy to keep a physique like that in tip top condition. Gary fashioned a beautiful presentation certificate for the dork in the red Mercedes Kompressor who parked two inches from the back of our trailer. Congratulations, you win Arsehole of the day! We tried bouncing it out of the way but it was too heavy so we woke up Auusie Geoff, the real one not the Leggo one, and got him to move the bus a bit. He was so pleased with this he deliberately bumped his head just so that he had something to complain about. The day proceeded pleasantly enough. We even contemplated a visit to a bar called Morrisons around the corner, which I remember had weird confessional boxes in it the last time I was here with the Tindersticks. I fantasised about bumping into Van Morisson in there and indulging him in deep and meaningful conversation for a few hours. “Look Van, I love you’re music n’that, even though you recorded that turgid piece of pseudo religious crap with that wanker Cliff Richard, I admire you for your outstanding contribution to modern music and the timbre of your unique bluesy / r&b tinged voice but you’re still a fat grumpy old git”.
Now, if you’re contemplating a gig in a shoebox as I believe King Adora are then don’t do one with the stage in the corner - triangular like - and especially don’t, KING ADORA ARE YOU LISTENING??????? do a gig with a fire exit next to the stage in the only place in the whole shoebox where a tiny guitar tech with 13 guitars can contemplate setting up his world. How we ever fitted all the gear on to the postage stamp with a corner cut off sized stage is a miracle of modern engineering. Des hung suspended from a heavy duty construction crane parked outside. Beaves had dug himself an artesian well and sat attentively 35 feet underground. Miami Dave had velcroed his 48 channel, half ton mixing desk to the wall and using the ancient yogi practice of self levitation was hovering over the controls - no mean feat for a man of his physique. I stood scratching my head, 13 guitars non existent space, non existent space 13 guitars, 13 non existent guitars and space the final frontier. Eventually a plan formed in my tiny little mind. Put guitars in front of fire exit so endangering the lives of 600 people. This seemed like a good idea. And it was... a bloody good one... King Adora take note...
Last time we were here I had to tune guitars in the pit between the stage and the audience. Clever people at the front thought it would be fun to detune the guitars during the gig. Nown I’m a mild mannered man, Steve and me vying on a daily basis for mildest man on the tour competition which we hold every day, but this time I lost it and very nearly ended up in an impromptu bout of fisticuffs. So no way Jose was I going in the pit in front of the bloody fire exit it was going to be. Meanwhile, Rick broke all of his guitars and with Godzilla like efficiency stomped the fuck out of all his pedals. Nothing worked now and I was getting hungry and tired. As doors were about to open the manager of the club in his efforts to line his already bulging pockets with even more money tried to hurry me up. He pushed all my gear all over the shoebox with things falling everywhere. I told him to fuck off, he said he was only trying to help, I told him he could help by fucking off. Now, I’m a mild mannered man, Steve and me....
The Limelight is probably a great gig if you’re a punter, apart from the ones in the front few rows who can’t hear anything because the PA is suspended above their heads and slightly behind said heads, but it is a nightmare for us. I completed 25 circuits along the front of the barrier, up on to the stage, give Rick one of his now fixed guitars, take now fixed guitar from Rick, give Dan one of his guitars, take guitar from Dan, bump into Steve on the way past, clobber him with Ricks now fixed guitar - sorry Steve - fall off edge of stage into guitar world put 600 peoples lives in danger, tune now fixed guitar for Rick, tune guitar for Dan and get ready to clobber Steve on the way past with Ricks now fixed guitar. Plenty of people in the front row shouting out at us taking pictures which only succeeds in making me stumble about and trip over even more. Move over Buster Keaton, I’s the Daddy now!
By some miracle akin to the miracle of the Gossard Wonderbra the gig went very well. Only one or two bits of gear packed up due to too much wet. As we packed the gear down Milky made a valiant attempt to chat up a fiesty Irish lass until her fiery Irish husband / boyfriend arrived towering King Kong like over Milky - good effort for an old boy.
Day off tomorrow. Abbiss, Dan and me swigging Whisky like blokes who’d done the hardest gig in their lives would swig Whisky. Groovy tunes, Irie Ting and very much laughing. Brown sauce... brown sauce... BROWN SAUCE... bROWN sAUCE... broWN... |
