»16th May 2010
Zuu Bar
The band I'm in, Sins of the Unforgiven, played its first gig last night at Zuu Bar. This is my winding, weak-anecdote-laden account of the evening.
Before
I woke up at about half twelve and started watching TV, I gradually became nervous. I tried to add lyric cues to the set list, there were only two songs I was worried about vocals-wise and they were No Remorse and Ace of Spades. I thought that if I could just get the first words of each line on the set list, that would be all the cues I'd need. Once I'd printed out the revised set list however, it quickly became apparent I wouldn't be able to see the cues at all, reading them off the floor where the set list would be stashed. So, abandoning this idea I printed out some normal set lists and just tried listening to the songs in question a few times more.
Martin came to pick me up at about half six. Everything was set. We arrived at the club shortly before seven and found out that instead of one or two bands going on before us, there would be four... and instead of an estimated start time of between nine and ten, we were slated to go on at 'two minutes to midnight'. 'Hang on, wasn't that just a joke when we scouted out the place? We're actually going to be waiting around five hours? Without drinking?'
This would turn into the longest time I've spent in a pub/bar without getting drunk. I started off nervous about the coming gig and then quickly became bored. I managed to spin out one bottle of Budvar to maybe an hour or so which took me all the way to about half eight. I then waited. I consumed Harvest Crunch bars: so metal. I had another drink at about half ten, Tyskie, this only lasted about half an hour. Boooored.
The first band came on at about half eight after a one-song sound test which must have been purely for the sound guy's benefit as no subsequent bands got a similar sound test prior to starting. The sound guy was a grumpy bastard referred to only as 'Scouse'. He was doubly grumpy because of the prospect of mic'ing of the bhangra band. 'The what band?'
At one point we went to stand outside the bar. A man with a hard-to-place accent that roamed from Austrailia to Birmingham started talking to us about how he'd been a punk since '74 ('Hang on, did punk even exist back then?') and how he didn't like the drummer for Pray For Control for some reason because he was young or something. He told us about how he'd get into a fight with anyone, especially people who asked him if he liked the Sex Pistols. He may then have gone onto how he hates The Pakis or something, it wasn't particularly clear what he was ranting about. Slightly in fear for our personal safety, we left aggressive Punkosaur outside with the broken glasses and fag ends.
The event was Mick's birthday. Mick works for Zuu bar in some capacity, his band was going to be playing also. Prior to the sound check, we were shown upstairs to marvel at the new room that was being unveiled that night as well, Zuu 2. There were plans for a stage to be built in this room as well. It was very flashy, there was a separate room which will eventually be the green room for bands that are playing. Mick mentioned that Goldie Lookin' Chain are booked for some time in the future. Impressive.
Some time later, we ventured outside again. Thankfully, the Punkosaur had moved on, probably to a brawl or something. The club next door to Zuu was called 'Uber', it was apparently a gay bar. It had a massive stage--with a glitter ball! 'So we're headlining the main stage at Uber tomorrow, right?'
As the waiting wore on, Martin became increasingly irritated. He had invited a lot of people down, people who were under the impression that we'd be playing at about nine or ten. As it quickly became apparent that this wasn't going to be the case, the frustrated pacing to and fro began.
Okay, time to talk about the bands.
Pray For Control
These guys described themselves as 'Driven melodic edgy punk rock and roll'.
Chatting with the bassist shortly after we arrived, we found out that this was Pray For Control's third or fourth gig, unfortunately sage-like advice was not forthcoming from the bassist as she was as much in the dark abuot the gig as we were.
I described them as 'kind of like L7'. Albeit a less hardcore L7. They played a half hour or so set consisting of mid-tempo grungey punk, probably something similar to PJ Harvey, but I wouldn't know what she sounds like, so I'll go with Juliette Lewis instead, who the band list as an influence. This all seemed very competent and made me feel more relaxed about our approaching set (though it was still a good six hours away as things turned out.)
Drastics
These guys describe themselves as '100mph Punk'.
The Drastics' singer had a bit of a buzz on, he admitted that he was drunk a couple of songs into the set. The Drastic's drummer looked like Billy Idol and had a kick pedal that Ryan was quite envious of. They too had a female bassist. I began wondering how much the band would be improved if I could go up a couple of cup sizes and maybe start wearing a bit of make up.
The Drastics played a load of straight up punk songs, the singer jumped and pogoed around a lot, the guitarist and bassist looked on disinterestedly, as it should be. I'm not quite sure where the 100mph came from really because besides a few bursts of increased tempo, everything seemed to be kept well within the speed limit.
The Drastics played for about half an hour or so.
Suicide By Cop
These guys describe themselves as a 'Post-punk/New Wave-style band'.
Suicide By Cop featured the guy whose birthday it was who was responsible for the entire event. The birthday boy was on keyboards, Hossman from my last visit to Zuu was on bass (he said I could use his 'rig' which was good as my bass amp felt entirely underpowered.) Suicide By Cop played for about forty five minutes or so, they had some quite big guitar solos and there were some amusing intros to their songs, 'this is a song about chavs!' On one song, there was something up with the sound because the bass or perhaps it was keyboards was completely overpowering. Suicide By Cop had a tiny female vocalist who seemed to hit a lot of high, powerful notes.
By this point in the night, we were basically all sat in the corner like grumpy old (sober) men.
Sahara
If I'd known the name of this band prior to the gig, I'd have been hoping they were some kind of Nile covers band. Sadly not, they are bhangra. They describe themselves as 'punjabi pop.'
I'm pretty sure I didn't hallucinate this, there was a bhangra band playing in the middle of a rock night, at a rock club. Martin had found out from one of his friends that they were actually quite a big thing in the bhangra scene. We were expecting big things. It was about half eleven, we were told when we arrived that we'd be on at 'two minutes to midnight' ('Why didn't we learn a cover of that?!') clearly our start time would be knocked back into the early morning. Clearly, this was the revenge of the bhangra boys.
Sahara took an hour to set up. An hour! The venue steadily filled up with Sahara fans, i.e. asians. The sound guy, known only as 'Scouse', was looking ever more grumpy, no doubt due to the fact that he had to completely re-mic the drum kit as well as mic up three additional sets of bhangra drums.
I know fuck all about bhangra and it was hard to really tell one song apart from another. They had a keyboardist with an impressive rig featuring two keyboards as well as a small midi controller and a laptop. The singer could really belt out a note, but when it's all in punjabi or whatever, it's not like you can really tell what's going on (not that you could understand a word of any of the previous bands anyway, live music just does not favour vocals.)
We have more drums than you.
Sahara finished their set and started packing up. The crowd had noticably thinned out during their set, evidently the hoardes of leather jacket wearing rockers didn't like bhangra too much. It probably felt like the thing was over, most of the other bands had cleared off, not counting Suicide By Cop who seem to actually work at Zuu. So aside from knocking our start time back by about an hour or so, Sahara had also succeeded in nuking our audience too. Anyway, it got to about ten to one or something and I started getting edgy, the sound guy was busily adjusting mics and what not whilst we set up our gear. Evidently, Sahara had somehow managed to stop the front monitors (which would normally blast the sound back at the band so you can hear what you're doing) from working, though we were still able to largely hear what was going on. So yeah, in future, don't share a line up with a bhangra band.
Having taken a look at Sahara's website, they appear to actually be a big band. A big bhangra band anyway. There are photos of them playing in front of very large crowds. They have multiple albums. They have been on the go for a while, since the nineties anyway. They have been nominated for a British Asian Music award. They have played in support of Sins of the Unforgiven. Well, they probably wouldn't say that, but at every concert I've been to, the band who plays last and for the longest is the main act. Then again, I haven't been to a concert where the last band came on at 1am to play their first ever set.
Sins of the Unforgiven
They describe themselves as 'aOkay so this is the band I'm in, finally. We played the following set:
- No Remorse
- Wasting My Hate
- Symphony of Destruction
- The Trooper
- Mother
- Rock & Roll
- For Whom The Bell Tolls
- Am I Evil?
- Ace of Spades
- Paranoid
The Four Horsemen- Seek and Destroy
All the songs went pretty smoothly. There was a minor slip up in Ace of Spades after my vocal dicking around during the bridge. Basically I've started taking an exaggerated paused after the line 'You know I'm born to lose...' Besides being amusing, it also served the unintended purpose of highlighting that people were actually singing along with us on that one, which is fucking awesome. However, it was so effective it managed to catch the drummer out as well, though we swiftly recovered. Possibly, in part due to the near-miss in Ace of Spades, the guitarists decided it would be best to drop Four Horsemen. I was totally up for Horsemen, but if anything was going to go disastrously wrong, it would have been that one, maybe I just like my big lead bass part in that too much.
Two members of the Clone Army turned up to guest on a couple of songs.
I struggled to find somewhere to stare whilst singing. I settled on spending most of my time staring just above the front row's heads. It's hard to say what it was like actually stood out in front of a load of people belting out the set-list we've been practicing for the past couple of months. It probably helped immeasurably that most of the people who'd bothered to suffer through the Sahara set were friends and family who were encouraing the band on. There was apparently one detractor, whose confidence was spurred by being stood at the back next to the bar, who recomended we get a new singer after our rendition of The Trooper. Whilst I'm no Bruce Dickinson, it's fair to say that the following song, Mother, is one the best for what I can pull off on the vocals, so maybe that shut him up. I can't recall hearing him at all, I was probably on too much of a buzz being armed with a ferocious bass tone (though it turned to mushy shit whenever I had distortion on for Ace of Spades or For Whom The Bell Tolls) and being able to hear my vocals loud and clear. Rock and Roll, with the Angel of Death(!) outro went spectacularly well, it's probably my favourite song the band plays. If you're really interested, and seeing as I'm in the mood for big pimpin', you can download the entire set-list recorded at rehearsals from the band website.
The set seemed to be over very quickly indeed, quite a rush. Everyone seemed very pleased. After brief congratulatory high fiving and clearing up gear we set off back to the safety of Kirklees at around twenty past two. In totally rock and roll fashion I finished off the night with a bowl of Golden Nuggets.
Extar, over, out.
Four hundred thousand more to die! Baby!