Gig Report: Electric 6, O2 Academy Burrrminghummmmm

Cirrus

Part 1

Normally my attempts at blogginating fizzle out because a; I'm not that interesting and b; nobody cares. But last night was a bit of an exceptional one compared to our usual standard of gig with some emotional highs and lows so I thought I'd post about it.

Last night we supported Electric 6 on the Birmingham date of their UK tour. We did the same thing this time last year; Electric 6 seem to have this nice thing going on where they pretty regularly release albums and tour them, I wouldn't be surprised if the order of their UK shows was basically the same as last year too. We managed to sell a bunch of tickets last year so we were invited back this time.

I try not to get my hopes up too much for these kind of gigs. The prospect of a few hundred people in the room, a decent PA system, dedicated monitor mixer, big lighting rig etc is exciting, but on the other hand a lot of the time you're treated like shit, the fact you're involved in proceedings is nothing but an inconvenience to everyone else and some horrendous thing beyond your control ruins the whole experience. I am reminded of the time a mate's band supported Amplifier and ended up having a 12 minute set before being told their time was up.

The promoter was putting on 3 supports - a group comprised mostly of Frenchmen were main support. We were below them, then another local band were on first.

So, we all took day/half day holidays from work to make sure we were there for the stated load in time of 5pm - cue the usual battling through rush hour traffic and desperately finding places to park in the city centre. How in 2016 can it be ok for a parking ticket machine to not accept £2 coins, a currency that have been legal tender for more than 18 fucking years at this point? Not cool.

Hurry up and wait is common in gigs. This one was no exception. When we were loading in, Electric 6 were just finishing up their soundcheck with a bit of a practice/ sorting out some song transitions. That's fair enough, it's their show and we're guests. Besides, our soundcheck time wasn't until 6pm so there was still a full hour for the main support to soundcheck.

That wasn't enough time. The main support had all kinds of things - an extra percussionist, keyboards, extra keyboards, elevated pedalboards with korg pads, strange and wonderful body-less guitars... it took time. During this time I had an (at least in my mind) amusing exchange with Dick Valentine, E6 frontman. He knew he was due to be interviewed, but didn't know who the interviewer was and asked if it was me.

"No, but I could interview you anyway if you like?"

"Ok, shoot!"

"What's it like to be back in the UK?"

"Well it's all good, but despite being a global megastar I'm just like you, I put on my trousers one leg at a time..."

"That's not how I put my trousers on."

"..."

Through all this, the main support continued to take time. They took time to set up, they took time to sort out electrical demons, they took time to sort out the on stage sound, they took time to sort out monitors. By the time they were finished and getting off stage, it was 6:30 and the doors were opening in half an hour.

Now, for the following to make sense you have to understand that I'm a nervous guy, and soundcheck is a ritual for me. Before soundcheck, I'm nervous Josh who probably wouldn't tap you on the shoulder to ask if I could please get past because you're blocking a door I need to get through. After soundcheck, I'm nervous Josh who will. A small but vital difference if I'm to perform on stage.

The sound crew told us to get up to soundcheck, but that we'd need to be very quick because the opening band would need to be set up and onstage at 7pm. I knew this would be no problem, because we're a military operation. Gear on, setup, ready, off. No messing about. But alas, our singer is a moron and said to the soundguy "you know our drummer's left handed, right?" 

"oh, ok. Let's not soundcheck you, you can just have a line check before your set."

Noooooooooo. No one else in the band cares, but I start to panic because now I won't have my soundcheck. How will I find out that a patch cable on my board is broken, or a valve has wiggled loose in the car on the drive over? If there's a problem now, I'll be desperately trying to sort it out on a dark stage with blaring between-band-music as the rest of the band stares daggers at me, our set time is being eaten into, and the whole room becomes bored and turns against us. This is my nightmare. Literally, this is a bad dream I get on occasion. I raise this issue with the band, no one else cares. I get angry, abandoned to my fate, and set out from the venue to find some food and try to calm down.

Cirrus

Part 2

It's cold and dark. Unusually, it's not raining. I've went with the shirt/suit jacket/jeans combo and getting my warm jacket on over the top of the suit jacket isn't comfortable. Shoulderpads and collars jostle for position, but I need the layers. As I walk from the O2 academy into the city centre to find food, I'm reminded that city centres on weeknights when you're sober aren't brilliant places. The underpass smells of wee. Passing strangers keep themselves to themselves. I find myself wondering why I'm even in a band and what I actually want to happen; I'm about to support a band that were fucking BIG when I was in school, and I'm in a bad mood.

Should I be in a band? What's the point? I'm in my 30s now, I've just got married. After tomorrow the fact I played this gig won't matter. It means nothing. It's not going to launch us to some amazing height.

As I wonder, I start to consider what I'll have to eat. Pre-gig food missions have got harder since I found out I can't eat gluten. In a state of pre-gig nerves which usually extend as far as mild nausea I'm never hungry, and usually want to pick whatever is easiest so I can just get it down my neck. Now I have limited options and have to go with stuff I don't actually want. On this occasion, I find myself wandering into the revamped New Street station. I have to ignore all the potentially nice hot stuff, even the nice sandwich places. Can't have those. I go into the little WH Smiths and pick up one of the greatest meals a 31-year-old has ever called dinner.

An Innocent smoothie, inspired by the recent Dave Gorman episode.

A galaxy chocolate bar.

A pack of crisps. There are lots in the shop but the only one I know I can eat without going through ingredients tediously are plain Kettle chips. Bullshit, mate.

A fucking oat bar. If cardboard were food.

A fucking nut breakfast bar. Like it's breakfast all over again.

My annoyance at my shitty attempt at dinner begins to eclipse my annoyance at not being granted a soundcheck.

On the way back to the venue, I pass a homeless girl in the street. She doesn't say anything, I pretend I haven't seen her and carry on. 100 yards further on I meet my drummer, who's going the other way to get his own dinner. The walk has done me some good, my anger has subsided and I don't want to be a stupid diva any more, so I offer to accompany him. He goes to a chippy which the homeless girl happens to be sitting outside. I realise she's part of my world now, and I have to give her some change. I have a £2 coin, useless to me in this post-apocalyptic world of ancient parking meters, so I go and hand it to her. "It's not lots, but hope you can get a hot drink with it".

She looks at me with big eyes. It's freezing, she's shivering. She's scared. "Merci". Shit, she doesn't even speak English. I have a huge soft spot for immigrants. I've just written an album about refugees. Oh no. This is why I don't give people change. For the rest of the walk back to the venue I'm worrying about her, one random person I don't know in a world of people who need help. I feel like I could weep, because I'm ashamed. £2 is nothing to me.

But, the annoyances of the gig melt away. A cliche I know but I've got some perspective. I've got a house, a job, a wife, a band that has its shit mostly together and I'm about to get to play my music to a bunch of people who are out to have a good time. What sort of cunt am I to be down about that?

When I get back to the venue, in through the back door, I hear the sound of a crowd echoing through the halls. I open the doors into the room and *fuck*.

The room is full. People from the barrier to the bar to the desk at the back wall

The band before us are taking to the stage.

The lights are down, soundgarden are playing on the PA.

This is fucking awesome, and it's almost showtime.

firepaulmusic

Can't wait for Part 3.....!

EricTheWeary

I'm enjoying this. 
The area around the O2 is particularly grim, although lots of students wandering through. 
I wonder if I'd have made it to Cafe Soya in the Arcadian for tea and back in time.

bbill335

FYI Pho in grand central is excellent for gluten free, if not the cheapest.

Are you  in Blank Parody? I was worried that, if you were in a band that regularly plays support slots in Brum, I had given your band a scathing review on one of the local music sites .

Cirrus

Part 3.

Blank Parody play their set. I have to admit, and I'm sure I won't be alone in this, that I very rarely pay attention to the other band's sets when I'm gigging. And I do not think badly of the other bands if they don't pay attention to us. This is not an attitude borne by ignorance or omission, but because I'm busy. Busy getting into the right headspace to perform, busy meeting and greeting my own friends and fans of the band as they arrive at the venue. On this night that's harder than usual because of a relatively rare problem for us; the room is full of people. I see friends who have travelled to see us on the other side of the room, and getting to them is a struggle. Some people have the gift of effortlessly gliding through crowds - straight through gaggles of people, scrums of drinkers, between lovers trying to stay together. I'm not like that, I believe in personal space and hate intruding on other's. Nonetheless, I use emotional capital getting to them all.

Blank Parody are good, and the room appreciates them. I'd like to catch them when I can just relax and take them in. Nice guys too - I'd chatted with one of them earlier out back before getting food, we had a little chuckle about how hard the question "What kind of music do you play" is to answer. They announce their last song, I move forward through the crowd to get backstage. Pete, father of our drummer and veteran roadie who worked with Slade back in the day (ask him about Monsters of Rock!) has already got one of my guitars out its case on onto my stand and is now working on the drum hardware.

I foolishly omitted to bring my second stand for my second guitar. I file that problem away for later.

Blank Parody get off the stage, sweaty and happy as far as I can see. This is good. I know from past experience that the sound onstage in this room can sometimes be a struggle. They also go up in my estimation by having their shit together in terms of clearing off stage hastily - there is nothing worse than a band who just abandon all their gear in your way and start slowly, slowly milling around picking at cables as if they're waiting for further instructions!

This is the point where, on good nights, I shift gears. Nerves shut down, they're useless to me now as clearly I've missed my chance to flee the scene and cower at home. Anxiety turns into confidence and a desire to get the job done; the job being to make loads of noise and prance about like a world-beating tit on an elevated platform. If it's not a good night I don't get this feeling straight away and the first few songs are a struggle while I get into the zone.

We're only playing 6 songs tonight, so that's not an option. No matter though, because tonight is a good night.

I pick up my guitar and pedal board, lug them up the stairs and through the stage door. The scene that greets me is fantastic. The room is still full, the crowd are noisy, drinking, happy. Some heads turn to watch us set up. I said before we were a military operation, and we are. Drums turned around, cymbal stands on stage in a specific order to minimise the forest-of-hardware effect. Our bassist quickly gets his ampeg head and 4x10 set up, pedalboard plugged in and plays his standard "does it work?" test - Open strings, descending, all 5. I've been here hundreds of times before, and this is my barometer to know how I'm doing - I treat it like a race with the bassist to get to the point where our rigs can make noise, because the quicker I get there the quicker I'll know if something's not working any more.

Funnily enough, confidence has descended on me. In sharp contrast with my earlier fears, I know there won't be any problems with my rig. I set up quickly, precisely, in the same order as always.

Amp on stage, in position. Make sure amp mic cable isn't trapped under feet. Make sure speaker cable is connected.

Plug in amp - earlier I'd scoped out where the power sockets were on stage so there'd be no surprises.

Flick power on amp. First test; does light come on? Yes. Good. Continue.

Open pedalboard, place in position between legs of mic stand. Plug VL Pedal Power 2 in immediately. Second test; do pedals turn on? Yes. Good. Continue.

Plug in cables. Amp's channel switcher. 3 way cable for pedalboard->amp input, then Effect loop send+return for TC Nova Repeater delay. Don't forget to plug into the high volume input - amp's loop is line level.

Flick amp off standby. Move to get guitars on stage.

Ah, Pete has already got my Explorer up. Fantastic. Oh shit, forgot about lack of second stand. Wait, my strat's up here too. No idea what stand it's on. Pete walks past carrying four bottles of water.

"Josh, I took that stand from another band, it was just sitting back there. They won't mind"

Pete is a thief. Years of stage handing has dulled his sense of right and wrong. I spend 250 milliseconds contemplating morality and my own culpability. I know it was 250 milliseconds because I was staring at the tap tempo light of my delay at the time.

I have yet to make guitar noise with my amp. Bassist has already made bass noise, I have lost the race. I pick up Explorer, plug into pedalboard, quickly tune and unmute.

Final check: Loud noises. Yes. Rig setup, works. GLORY! Quickly adjust my mic stand for comfort. Check amp settings, twist a couple of knobs. Scan Compressor, SD-1, Zoom Powerdrive, Proco Rat, Nova Delay and EH Memory Toy knob settings - all present and correct. Locked and loaded. Showtime. All systems go. Zero hour. Ready for liftoff.

During this time, the soundguy has been up on stage efficiently getting all the mics in position. He asked for our stage setup a week ago because he's a pro, so he knows what mics need to go where. The monitor mixer at the side of the stage asks us what we want to hear.

"Only vocals and some bass along the front wedges, kick bass and vocals on the drum wedge please."

Thumbs up from monitor mixer, he's happy.

I scan round the stage. Drums are set up, I turn just in time to see drummer finish getting his IEM's in and give me a thumbs up. Bassist is ready. I know he's ready because he won the fucking setup race. Singer isn't on stage but he likes to make a big entrance - I assume he's ready. I ask the monitor engineer (he's on my side of the stage) if we're good to go, he says yes. Front of house mixer has somehow magically teleported from the stage to the back of the room, I give him a thumbs up over the crowd and the music (still soundgarden, I note) starts to fade out. A few more faces in the crowd lift and square up with the stage.

The crowd are not people, I know. They're just a floor with many faces, a single mass of human. I have nothing to fear from them. Put me in a pub gig with 10 people and I'll be scared, this bunch of 500 individuals is child's play.

I stomp on my Rat and Memory Toy, turn to nod at drummer. He clicks his sticks.

-1


-2

*hammer on note, fucking love the Rat. It's build for live, distortion fills the room*

-3

*vibrato, Memory Toy modulation washes through the sound, thick. "Josh" recedes, cast off, I'll pick him up at the other side*

-4...