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

Thursday 8th July 2010
Camden Lock Tavern, London

The Momeraths
The Dawn Chorus
Stages of Dan
Jack Garratt

This was one of those shows that roughly follows that horrendous reality tv cliche - 'emotional rollercoaster.' I had been trying to arrange for bloody weeks who was providing all the kit for this show - we didn't really want to lug it there for a non-headline show - but since we heard nothing, we took everything. Then it obviously turned out we didn't need any of it.

Simps and I left straight from work to meet the other boys who had got there early. We sat in a very sweaty traffic jam for an hour but we needn't have rushed. There was literally no sign of a gig at the Lock Tavern at gone 8 o'clock. No drum kit, no PA, no stage. Not generally a good sign.

The show did eventually happen, and after a good few hours of getting rapidly more pissed and frustrated, we actually played a pretty great show. The sound was dodgy and Pauly B was rather too pissed to be playing keys, but it came over as endearlingly shambolic. Our set coincided with the outdoor sections of the pub being shut, which meant we played to an absolutely crushed room and I lost about a pound in sweat as a result. That's a good thing though. Following this our good friend Gaz led Ben and Paul off into the Camden night to thoroughly ruin themselves, and the rest of us returned to the M40, M25, M3, home, bed and work.