Written by:host
10/6/2006

Wrote this just before our gig in the Dublin Castle on Monday....

Sitting in the back of the van, outside the Dublin Castle in Camden Town. It is quarter past nine. To my right I can hear the traffic roaring past, and to my left the dynamics of the chatter and laughter of drinkers sitting outside the venue where we will play tonight at about a quarter past eleven. Two hours until we fill that large room with our sounds. Last night we played at the Little Civic in Wolverhampton - lots of kids jumping around and linking arms while we battled technical meltdown onstage. All part of the fun. It is all starting to become more familiar, this. We travel for a few hours. Arrive at the venue. Unpack the van. Set up the stage. Soundcheck. Remove everything from the stage. Long wait. Watch the other bands. Set up the stage. And then we play our music to people who stand and watch and listen and drink. Each of us, in the band, in the audience, we display our cynicism and our open-heartedness - our ambivalence and our passion. It is an interesting mix of confusing emotions. For me I feel adrenaline, anxiety, and excitement. In the last few minutes leading up to our performance, I try to work myself into a state in which I feel a kind of buzzing, shaking intensity somewhere between my chest and my forehead. And then I let it all start to flow out of me in the blessed relief of that first note. Anyway, I thought I'd kill some time telling you all this. But now it is time for a pint. 1 hour 40 minutes and counting…

later...

OK, and now it is quarter to 2 and we played at the Dublin castle. We are just passing Hammersmith on the A4. Ben is driving the van and swearing a lot. In three hours we shall be in Exeter. At the moment, I am sitting in the van in exactly the same seat. My brother is sitting beside me and reading a magazine with lots of pictures. We are at service station and I can hardly type so goodnight. I enjoyed the gig very much indeed. Paul Oxo claims to believe that it is dark and depressing in this place. But he consoles himself, as ever, with the slow realisation that he has a warm sandwich on which to gorge himself forever, or at least until he has finished said sandwich.

Thanks for reading,
Paul K-M

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