6.30pm
I arrive at the Blacksmith's Arms and nearly fall over with
shock when it appears that most of the band is already there.
This is unheard of in the Whey Aye C/DC camp as usually, at
least two of us turn up late citing various excuses for our
crappy time keeping. E.g.
- ‘Getting
lost’ (which is surprising when it’s a venue we’ve played at
least three times and have had no previous problems
finding.) Although me and Neil tend to get lost actually
going home from gigs rather than getting to them.
- Stopped to
get something to eat and lost track of time. (Graham insists
on filling up his willowy frame with at least one KFC
bargain bucket and chicken zinger meal before every gig.
Witnessing first hand the amount of food he eats, we're
still unsure as to why he's still sporting the physique of a
Cambodian Racing Snake.)
As Neil
is usually the first to arrive, he’s been able to claim most of
the stage with his percussion paraphernalia, while Chris is
shuffling about in the background trying to find a spare place
to put his 'wall of sound'. (ie. speaker cabs to you and me).
6.35pm
I ask the bar manager if there's anywhere I can leave my bag /
clothes / towel / 12 cans of smuggled in Stella - and he tells
me I can leave them in the back room behind the bar.
The
backroom behind the bar also doubles as the cellar, kitchen and
cleaners cupboard.
6.40pm
Dave - our pa bloke is trying in vain to wedge his lighting rig
in between Neil’s oil-rig drum kit and the Berlin Wall of bass
cabs that Chris has erected. It’s like watching a dog trying to
get through a gap in a fence with a stick in it’s gob.
6.41pm
Dave asks Neil to ‘shove his drums across a bit’ so he
can fit in his bass bins. Neil gives him a look like he's just
waggled his cock in his face, ignores him, and starts polishing
a cymbal.
6.41
30secs
Dave asks Neil again to ‘shove his drums across a bit’.
Neil glowers at him again, and finally looks up from what he’s
doing.
6.42pm
Dave asks Neil yet again to shift his drums over a bit. Neil
tells him he can’t shift anything cos it’ll ‘knacker his
on-stage soond’ and that he couldn’t help him anyway cos the
shrapnel wound he sustained in ‘Nam is playing up.
6.43pm
Neil finally gives up trying to assemble his Piper-Alpha drumkit,
and wanders off to try and blag some gaffa tape and a bag of
Scampi Fries from behind the bar, so Dave takes the opportunity
to try and shove Neil's drums half a foot to the right.
6.44pm
There’s an almighty clatter, as Neil's entire drumkit topples
sideways and gets wedged between the wall and a pool table. Me
and Dave frantically try to get it back into position before
Neil notices. Dave points out that he may actually notice the
six-inch tear in his bass drum skin, but we both agree to blame
it on 'two big lads causing bother'.
6.45pm
Deano arrives and chucks a proper girlie strop when he sees that
Neil has stacked all his drum cases around the base of his amp,
leaving Deano about six square inches in which to stand / move /
play. Deano takes a deep breath, counts to ten, then kicks
Neil’s drum cases over to the other side of the stage.
6.46pm
While Deano is twiddling with his amp – Neil moves them back.
6.47pm
Still chucking a hissy-fit, Deano shoves Neil’s drum cases to
the side of the stage. Again.
6.48pm
Deano nearly breaks a toe trying to nudge a bag of cymbal stands
across the stage with his foot. He turns purple and starts
swearing even more.
6.49pm
Deano limps off to the bar, mumbling something about being the ‘f*cking
invisible band member’. No one pays any attention. After
all, he is invisible.
6.54pm
Deano comes back from the bar with some beer inside of him -
looking slightly less miserable. Neil has tidied up his drum
cases and stuck them in a nice neat pile. On top of the pool
table.
Deano
walks up to his amp, and trips over a microphone cable that
hasn’t been taped down properly. .
7.00pm
Dave (PA bloke) goes to the back of the room and clears a table
to put the mixing desk on.
7.01pm
Dave goes back to the table to find an extremely hard-looking
biker couple sitting there.
7.02pm
Dave and me are trying to figure out how we are going to ask the
hard-looking biker couple to shift, without getting thumped /
stabbed / shot / burned on a cross.
7.05pm
Dave is given the job of asking them to move. Surprisingly they
take it quite well and he returns unscathed. They probably
succumbed to his charm and serial killer looks. Either that or
he threatened to wrap them in an old carpet and bury them in the
woods.
7.10pm
Neil decides to try and break the sound barrier by twatting the
living hell out of his kit. He reckons it’s something all
drummers have to do before a sound-check to ‘see if they need
tuning’.
7.11pm
Dave is stood in front of the drums waving his arms like a
demented air traffic controller and shouting something to Neil.
Neil ignores him and carries on his world record attempt for the
world’s longest drum solo.
7.12pm
Neil stops playing and everyone hears Deano shouting “Neeeeeiiiiilllllll
maaaan, yer fookin’ drums are droonin’ oot the jukebox in the
next pub maaaan!”
7.30pm
After lecturing Neil like a naughty schoolboy for 15 minutes
about being professional and not making too much noise before a
gig, Deano plugs in his guitar and starts fannying about with
his amp.
7.30 +
30secs
The chords to Back In Black are ringing around the room, which
is filled with a sound similar to Concorde taking off. The
unexpected sonic blast catches everyone sitting in the bar by
surprise, and people grab hold of their drinks to stop them from
tipping over. Grown men run for cover, dogs howl, windows all
around Gosforth are boarded up - while women clutch their
terrified children to their bosoms. (Well not quite, but you get
the general idea.). After a couple of minutes, Deano turns his
guitar down, hangs it on the stand and mooches off into the bar,
completely oblivious to chaos he’s caused and the people in the
front row holding beer mats over their ears.
7.45pm
The room is getting seriously hot. The weather outside is
freezing, but because we’ve had to close all the curtains to
stop the light from coming in – it’s like trying to breathe
through cotton wool. Chris asks Neil if he can wear a sleeveless
vest on stage due to the heat. Neil turns him down flatly and
insists he wears his ‘AC/DC 1970's style bargain bin t-shirt’
which the rest of us think makes him look like a liquorice
all-sort.
7.48pm
Graham finally arrives clutching the remains of a Chicken Fillet
Tower Meal, with extra fries and large coke. Apparently he was a
We
decide to Soundcheck.
Graham suggests Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be.
7.48pm
I tell him I’d prefer to do Back In Black
7.48pm
Neil says he’d rather do Shoot To Thrill, or anything by
Slipknot.
7.48pm
Dave suggests we get our fingers out cos the pub is starting to
fill up.
7.48pm
Graham suggests Rocker. Neil points out that we don't actually
play that one.
7.53pm
After soundchecking with Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be, we head
to the bar to get a couple of beers.
8.00pm
I get introduced to Jeff - a bloke at the bar who apparently
works with my brother. He's Australian so I’m a bit wary at
first as I don’t fancy spending the next hour talking about
Kylie's arse and how many Koala Bears he bbq'd last summer, but
he turns out to be a canny bloke. He’s got some relatives over
from Australia so he decided to come and check the band out. He
initially wanted to spend the evening visiting Durham Cathedral
with his elderly Aunt, but remarkably my brother convinced him
that the band were far more important than some ‘shitty old
church’.
8.10pm
Neil has agreed to play a gig in Sydney, Australia for £200 plus
beer money.
8.12pm
Graham comes out of the dressing room / kitchen complaining that
the smell of chip fat will not be doing his cholesterol level
any good. Chris is stood by the kitchen door sniffing his
t-shirt and pulling a face. Deano is hobbling around the stage
murmuring to himself and frowning at the various PA leads coiled
up around his feet.
8.15pm
Despite having A2 sized posters plastered all over the venue,
with WHEY AYE C/DC and AC/DC written on them in 6” high letters,
a bloke comes up and asks if we play any Metallica. Graham
chokes on his Chicken Zinger Meal and nearly falls off his
chair.
8.20pm
The place is getting quite busy, and we’re about an hour away
from going on stage. The smell of chips is getting stronger in
the kitchen / dressing room and we’re all starting to get
hungry. ”
8.21pm
We end up sharing one basket of chips between four of us. Neil
refuses to eat any. No doubt his arteries are starting to seize
up just looking at them.
8.22pm
I walk over to the mixing desk to have a word with Dave about
the sound mix. He's sitting there munching his way through a
massive basket of fried chicken, complete with chips and various
dips. Dave tells me he got them ‘for nowt, cos he's with the
band’. The twat.
8.30pm
I go into the dressing room to hang up my onstage clothes.
Graham is fussing about hanging up his school uniform and
preparing himself for the gig. The dressing room smells like
Deep Heat spray, domestos and stale batter.
8.35pm
Deano is looking a bit more relaxed. In fact, the half a dozen
empty glasses on top of his amp and his glazed expression
suggest that he’s very relaxed indeed.
8.40pm
A geet big hard looking biker called ‘Dirtyarse’ or something,
tells Dave to shift a PA speaker, as it’s blocking his view.
Dave agrees wholeheartedly that it was stupid of us to even
consider putting a PA speaker at the front of the stage – and
promises Dirtyarse he will get it moved.
8.42pm
Dave asks Neil to help him move the PA speaker. Neil tells him
he would love to help, but he slipped a disc getting out of the
shower this morning and it’s giving him a bit of jip.
8.43pm
I give Dave a hand lugging the speaker a few feet to the right,
so as not to impede Dirtyarse’s view.
8.44pm
Something hairy, and of indeterminate gender comes over to Dave
and tells him they can’t see the stage cos we’ve moved a speaker
in front of him. Dave promises to shift it, and buggers off to
the bar as soon as everyone’s back is turned.
9.00pm
We’re all in the 'dressing room', sweating like pigs and trying
to chill out a bit before we’re due on stage. Graham is coating
himself in some kind of Deep Heat lard complaining about his
sciatica, whilst Neil and Deano are discussing which types of
beer give them the worst diarrhoea. Neil is rat-a-tat-tatting on
a bucket with two wooden spoons and I’m trying to find a space
in the crowded dressing room that doesn’t smell like
physiotherapy clinic or the bottom of a chip pan.
9.10pm
I do a last check of the stage to make sure everything is
working and set up ok. Deano follows me out and stands frowning
in front of his amp. A bloke comes up and asks him if he’s in
the band. Deano cracks a smile and answers that yes, he is in
fact a member of the band and thanks the person for coming up to
speak to him. The bloke looks at Deano funny and says:
“Naw
mate, I was going to ask if yer can shift yer van. It’s blocking
the fire escape.”
9.20pm
Someone also asks me if I’m in the band and I make the mistake
of saying yes. For the next 10 minutes I’m cornered by half a
dozen burly bikers all requesting various songs from the AC/DC
back catalogue. Some of them are songs we already play, but
others are so obscure I doubt even AC/DC could remember them. Of
course I manage to attract the obligatory nutter, asking for
Iron Maiden and Metallica – who I point in Graham’s direction.
9.30pm
Showtime. The five of us burst onto the stage to a great round
of applause. All stinking like Bimbi’s fish and chip restaurant
and toilet duck. .
10.30pm
The gig is going really well, and apart from a few people
slipping over in the puddle of beer left at the side of the
stage - the crowd are loving it.
11.45pm
Gig finished and we’re all in the dressing room trying to get
dried off and changed. The place still stinks of fish and chips,
and we have to keep telling people who come in that it’s not
actually us making the smell. Although the pine scented toilet
duck does smell better than Graham's Blue Stratos Aftershave.
Once
again, another great gig at the Blacksmiths. Another reason it’s
so great is cos I manage to get home before 2.00am.
Till
next time…
