The Dawn Chorus / The Retrospective Soundtrack Players - Blogging all over the World

The Junction, Plymouth
Tuesday 28th October 2008

The Dawn Chorus

Where to start? There is almost too much to remember, it all got too weird at one point. I really hope that one day we can look back at this and smile. Although saying that, large parts of the Plymouth show already make me smile when I think back. It went a little something like this........

• Myself, Matt and Keef were due to leave at 1pm to get there nice and early and check into the hostel. But when I went to put some diesel in my car before we left I realised I had filled my tank from a tank of unleaded (not at a petrol station, I'm not quite that much of an idiot). This meant that I was stranded until my brother in law Al was kind enough to come and siphen (sp?) it all out and start again.
• Picked Matt up and got on the road just after 3. Around 30 mins later get stuck behind a seriously serious car crash and have to about turn on the 303. This wasted close to an hour.
• This is when it gets worse, when driving through a little village I momentarily took my eye off the road in crawling traffic and went into the arse of a the driver in font. Or their car. She was very nice about it and neither car was scratched but apparently she has a history of back problems, deep joy!
• Getting very late and quite dark now. Simps had awful wind and never gives you prior warning or even an apology afterwards, He just sits there like a dog with avsmug look on his face.
• We did at least invent a new game of making up awful puns, but it's an in joke that really won't translate into blog form.
• Finally got there just before 8 and it was basically a pub with no sign of a PA, mics, anything. PA eventually appeared but we had to go on a drive around Plymouth for mics and a stand.
• So we set up our own PA and sound check ourselves and do our set at about 10. It literally would have been completely pointless if new friend of the band Ollie hadn't have come down - he emailed us around the time of 'Town/City' and has been in touch ever since. Top bloke.
• There was also a strange guy called Michael who stood about a foot away when we played and gave us feedback between songs: 'more treble on the vocals!', 'more mandolin!'. He had a massive tooth at a different angle to his other teeth.
• At this point things got weird again - I could not find my keys for love nor money. I was getting seriously upset now at possibly my most idiotic day ever. Looked for them on ond off between half eleven and 1am when the pub shut. Lots more beers and Jagermeisters downed inbetween. I even called the AA to book a locksmith to get me back in my car. I'm starting to think now that this was all a big ploy by the bar staff to keep us in and drinking, as sure enough, the keys appeared BEHIND THE BAR just as we were leaving at 1. Very suspicious. I was overjoyed though, a lovely combination of being on the way to drunkenness and that euphoric feeling of not having lost something you thought was lost. We moved on into the hustle and bustle of a Tuesday night in Plymouth.
• Went to a reccommended student bar which was about the size of a garden shed. Cheap drinks though. There was another similar shed next door but you had to pay to get into that one so we moved on. We were all completely lost so got a taxi to take us to somewhere open late, but the place he took us to was completely inbred and local - think The Slaughtered Lamb from American Werewolf in London - so we went to that classy establishment Walkabout for another drink. Some of the boys danced to Mmmbop - this coincided with most people leaving Walkabout.
• Home to the hostel to wake up the poor Pole we were sharing a room with. Sorry mate, not that you'll ever, ever read all this tosh.
• That was our first visit to Plymouth.

x

posted by Kyle  # 1:56 PM