A brief history of
February 2007
Back in Black played their final show at the Rocketfest Charity Gig at Killingworth, Newcastle in February 2007. Not being a charitable sort of chap, the lead guitarist had buggered off to pursue superstardom with another band, leaving the band, the charity, and therefore the kiddies with incurable diseases and club feet, to fend for themselves.
A charity case child, with an incurable disease. Possibly.
Touched by the plight of the disease ravaged children, Graham from Volts (a Scotland based DC tribute – although Graham is from the North East) donated £5.00 of his very own money to the charity, and kindly agreed to stand in for the gig. The gig was a success and so BIB rode off into the sunset, thumbed their nose at the live music scene, and promptly imploded.
March 2007
Graham and Daz discussed the idea of continuing with Back in Black, but Daz was reluctant to do this, as Dave, Shaun and Graeme (BIB line up) had all moved onto to other projects. Daz was open to the idea of starting another band from scratch, provided he didn’t have to ‘clart about finding band members’. So the search for suitable musicians was initially left to Graham, while Daz sat back, scratched his knackers, lit a cigarette and did basically nowt.
April 2007
Fortunately the rhythm guitarist from Volts / Tygers of Pan Tang – Dean, also lives in the North East, and was keen on the idea of forming a band more ‘local’ for himself and Graham. Both agreed that travelling to gigs in Dundee and Inverness for a tenner were starting to take a toll, and were looking foward to playing more around the local area.
A haggis-eating Scot. Yesterday.
Dean got in touch with Chris, a bassist he knew, and who being an AC/DC fan, agreed to join also.
Finding a drummer was proving quite a problem, until Daz contacted Neil, a drummer he knew and had been in a band with a few years back. Neil initially turned the offer down (several times), preferring to ply his trade in more heavy-style doomy-black-metal bands that wear black clothes, dance naked around camp fires by the pale moonlight, sacrifice goats and drink virgins blood from skulls - but after Daz plagued the life out of him for a couple of weeks and threatened to tell his missus what he gets up to in his garden shed late at night, he eventually relented and agreed to give it a go.
Neil’s Garden Shed. (Virgin not included)
Rehearsals began, and at first they didn’t go too well. Everyone was trying ‘too hard’ to nail the AC/DC sound, and it was sounding forced and too laboured. But within a short space of time, everything just clicked and the band moved up a gear and started to gel.
Constant rehearsals followed, the band started to sound better and better.
More songs were added to the set on a weekly basis and the set began to come together quite rapidly. Daz dropped a few songs that BIB played for the sake of his sanity (The Jack, Problem Child) and some fresher material was added, but always ensuring that whatever song was chosen, was a classic from DC’s back catalogue.
Not ‘The’ Jack, but you get the idea…
Deciding on a name was also a stumbling block as Graham and the others were keen on resurrecting Back in Black. Ever the stubborn sod, Daz refused to use it as he thought it would be disrespectful to the ex-members of Back in Black. (except possibly one, who would cut your throat, burn down your house and sell your mother into slavery if he thought it would massage his already colossal ego and prolong his sciatica and arthritis-ridden shelf life by another year or two).
Daz wanted the new band to be judged on its own merits, rather than riding on the coat tails of an already established, but defunct band name.
So after pondering on a name for a few weeks a shortlist was drawn up. Everyone agreed that nearly every tribute band in the UK chooses a name from a song / album title, and as names like ‘High Voltage’, ‘Thunderstruck’ etc.. are hardly original, something a bit different was needed in order to give the band an identity of it’s own.
The name Whey Aye C/DC had first been jokily suggested by Daz when BIB first formed as he thought ‘Back in Black’ was a bit shite for a band name.
But not for the first or last time, his suggestion fell upon the deaf ears / selective hearing of the BIB dictatorship. (Along with any other suggestions, regarding song choices, website contributions, logos, posters, gigs, possible bookings, pa hire, stage clothes, band direction etc).
A dictator. (Gibson SG out of shot)
So the name was duly brought up at a band meeting and the rest of the lads seemed to quite like it. All except Graham, who furrowed his brow, exhaled loudly, and took a big, girly huff as he still wanted to call it Back in Black.
Neil, Chris and Dean all agreed that although it ‘looked a bit funny’ when written down (and still does), it gave the band a unique identity, showed a sense of humour which was sadly lacking in BIB and showed that the band were from the North East of England.
So Dean picked Graham up, put him back in his box, ignored the muffled shouts of protest, and everyone voted for Whey Aye C/DC (although by this time Daz was keen on calling it ‘Liquor and Poker’, which has sod all to do with AC/DC, but he thought it was funny all the same).
Graham’s Box. (Midget sold separately)
MAY 2007
Around this time news had spread on the local grapevine that the band had formed and were nearly ready to gig. Venues and promoters / agents started to get in touch to book the band. The first gig accepted was a private party at Gosforth Rugby Club, as the lads thought it would be an ideal situation to ‘test the water’ with the band and would be a slightly more relaxed atmosphere than a local pub gig, where pint glasses full of piss being thrown were a subtle hint the audience weren’t too keen on you. The £800 fee was irrelevant. Honest
The gig was booked for July, which left the lads around 6 weeks to prepare for it, so like true professionals, Graham buggered off to Florida for a fortnight, while Neil took the family away to Seahouses for a week.
Graham. Having the time of his life in Florida.
JUNE 2007
With the first gig rapidly approaching, the lads took drastic action and waited patiently for Graham and Neil to return from their holidays.
Upon their return, the next rehearsal was cancelled due to Graham booking a weekend in France, to recover from his long haul flight back from Florida, but soon everything was back on schedule and the band were as tight as a Gnat’s chuff. Thunderstruck was deemed a bit too sloppy, so was dropped from the set and replaced with Riff Raff (which remains the set opener to this day).
Riff Raff. Not opening the band's set. Yesterday.
JULY 2007
The first gig went better than expected, despite the Sound / Lights bloke being a little bit liberal with the smoke machine. (Daz nearly trod on Graham half a dozen times as he couldn’t see him).
The PA bloke – liberally using the smoke machine at the band’s first gig.
The audience contained 20 odd horrified looking pensioners, who couldn’t decide whether to put their fingers in their ears, or their hands over their eyes.
The audience at the first gig – literally begging for more.
The band played well though, and were now ready to launch themselves into a punishing gig schedule, to fit nicely around Graham’s punishing holiday schedule, Neil and Chris’ punishing work schedules, Daz’s punishing Xbox / Drinking schedule and Dean’s punishing work and other assorted bands schedule.
Graham’s passport. These pages were blank up until 3 weeks ago.
MORE TO FOLLOW….