It’s with great excitement that I write today’s blog post to let you in on the pleasure we’ve had playing our first gig in a venue outside of the big smoke (London), hitting up the basement stage of Exchange in the heart of Bristol. Rehearsals are great to get into shape, but there’s nothing quite like a sweaty gig on a tiny stage in a basement with your mates, where hitting each other by accident seems like a purposefully rehearsed band moment. Just picture a room filled with gear, people who have only just started going back to gigs, some who are seeing live music for the first time in around 18 months, artificial lighting, no air conditioning, enough volume to give your hearing a run for its money and a growing smell of eau de Heineken as the night went on. What more could you ask for?
The energy in the room was undeniable, and given our proximity to the audience standing at the front, we could feel their excitement (literally, we could feel them!). Every punter I had a chance to chat to was kind and gave good feedback on our performance. All the bands we got to share the stage with were great and really nice too. Bristol was a lot of fun and I’m glad we made new friends and fans out of it.
As in proper rock star fashion, we had people over for an after-party at our flat. The aim of the game was to celebrate our return to regular live music and possibly place bets on who would live up to the title of CREFLN king the next day. In an unexpected twist, nobody crashed in the bathroom, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we get some good snaps of one of us in a bathtub… Oh boy. I’d like to mention that at approximately 2AM, Ryan, Ollie and I decided that sourcing some food would be a responsible thing to avoid winning this bet by too much and subsequently regretting our alcohol-induced commitment. As we went around the corner of the flat where we were staying, three magnificent take-out establishments stood before our eyes: pizza, kebab or…pizza kebab! Tough choice. Luckily a group of men, who apparently were also competing for the CREFLN king title, told us with utmost conviction “this is the best one, mate”. They were talking about the pizza place obviously. Our pizzas arrived and took up every inch of the boxes they were in; they were custom fit rectangles to the size of the box. My lack of sobriety made this that much more hard to believe and every perfectly rectangular slice tasted better than the last. Lust at first sight.
After efficiently consuming our rectangular pizzas and discussing our most profound thoughts on life with the least amount of vocabulary possible, we decided to adjourn our meeting and get some rest. Unfortunately, the pizza didn’t help as much as I’d hoped. It’s hard to tell who won the bet, but it goes without saying that the trip back the next day was indeed a challenge. I’d like to give a special shout out to our manager Sam, who despite having partied harder than any of us, remained the most functional the next day. Dude, how do you do it??
Anyhow, as I write this, we’ve been practising diligently twice a week, going through our various setlists, writing new material and getting our new equipment hooked up to improve our sound and give you the best show possible. Our next gig in London is at The Grace in Highbury and Islington and we’d love to see you there! Tickets are here. If you can’t make it, no worries, we’re also playing on November 6th at the Water Rats, tickets are here. Can’t make that one either? No worries, we’re playing the Acklam Village Market on November 13th. It’s not a ticketed event, so just turn up!
Now, if that still doesn’t work because you’re living it up so much you just have zero free time for the next few months (after what the world has been through, I’d be the last one to blame you), we’ve got you covered, as we’ll be performing at The Finsbury on January 7th. This show for us is far enough in the future that we’ve not fully decided on details yet, but it’s our first show of 2022, so we’d love to see you there!
Don’t forget you can check all our gig dates on the TOUR PAGE of our website!
Until next time!
Julien aka Danger Canada.