Mud Island Tour blog 5 – playing through the plague

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Created on Tuesday, 19 April 2011 16:50

Back in Brighton, writing with a vague hunger in my belly. How many days has it been? Only five?

It feels like I’ve come out the other side of a Large Experience which must have altered everything. Looking back…

Thursday

After a journey of stop-start for food and vomiting, we got to the Portland Arms, Cambridge; a venue a lot less than half the size of my flat (small). Rob, with a pony tail and a caribeena on his belt, greeted us low key. The promoter can’t be here, he said. Strange but fine, we replied, and filled the entire space with our equipment. Coming back from the toilet, I saw a poster for our gig.

“Dizraeli and the Small Gods”

it read, in bright orange

“14th of July 2011″

Really? Really? No wonder the promoter wasn’t showing his face. He put the wrong month on the poster. Mate. If any error is Schoolboy, that one is*. We prepared ourselves for a very small audience, and soundchecked on our very small stage. Ah. Nonetheless. The Portland serves a mean chilli, which we ate between interviews with local radio and the man from Under The Music Tree. At least some people knew we were here. A skinny trickle of humans came in, and Le Juki played the support set to them, casting unexpected spells over their faces with their specially angled songs. Lee was a shade of pale and Jules swayed gently, but with Bunty they worked magic.

It can be good sometimes, to strip audience size down to just a few earholes. You can play for every person in the room, catch some eye-contact from everyone and get to know them more. Technical itches at the start of our set meant we had no amplification, so Cate and I started acapella (easily loud enough for that space) and the band gentled in behind us when the amps were ready. Our small crowd (can’t have been more than 15 of them) became our allies through the process, and we were all carried through the hour pleased. The technical injury time meant that Downlow missed his train back to London, but Peter in the front row offered him a room at St John’s college for the night, and after we finished, we all (except for the plague-struck ones) zig-zagged into Cambridge passing a bottle of Morgan’s Spiced.

Nice one Peter and crew for your hospitality – we had a good shakedown at the Fez to a proper DJ set from Mr Wicked (not his real name), and I had to lie down on a wall on the way back to the B & B.

Friday

Good morning: a long room full of beds and Gods, and a walk to the greasy spoon.

Look, Jules and Lee are alive again – both of them with colour in their cheeks and gangling around laughing. Thank frig – this plague is short-lived and not so virulent.

Kassia and (Lee’s lady) Timi left us and we heaped the gear back into J Claude Van for the short drive to Birmingham. The setup there couldn’t have been more different from Cambridge – the Midland Arts Centre is a giant new building with a tasteful river round it. We were issued with swipe cards for the doors, a conference room to eat our rider in and a brightly lit dressing room where we could wash and prepare. We played on a massive stage in a big black theatre, us in stage lighting and the audience in complete darkness: the other end of the scale from the Portland Arms. It’s disconcerting, seeing no eyes at all – it detaches you from the people you’re there for. Anyway, we had a whole lot of love from people afterwards so there must have been Something present.

Ah man. It was afterwards that our Brum treat really took place. Through Rachel Rose Reid, we’d been put in contact with the lovely Katrice, who’d offered to put all 8 of us up for the night. I once performed at a spoken word event that Katrice put on, but other than that we were complete strangers. On the phone she’d exuded warmth and welcome, and in person she and her family were a joy. We drew up to their door after midnight (dismantling our setup takes a long time, and nah we haven’t got roadies), and Katrice was on the step open-armed. Inside: a kitchen full of food she’d prepared for us, a yard with a wood fire, a rabbit and a chinchilla. We couldn’t have been more nurtured. Outside smoking shisha, passing rum. Want any, Lee? No? Lee are you alright man?

Hm, anyway – we crashed into our various beddings as contented as possible.

Saturday

The plague was back. When I woke up at midday, Lee was ashen-faced on the sofa. Cate had fallen too – she and Lee had spent all night taking turns with the toilet, flushing days’ worth of service station food out to sea. And Belle couldn’t work out if it was just tiredness, but she wasn’t feeling that special either. Shit.

3 Gods went to the high street to buy thankyous for our hosts… The street teemed with characters, and a shop offered Ooze of all kinds, making life richer for the pourer. We bought china owls, flowers and whisky and presented our presents to our hosts back at theirs.  Katrice you’re a genius, Ian you’re a legend, Holly you’re a gem, Oliver thank you.

Chester wasn’t far to drive, although to Lee, Cate and Belle (now officially stricken) it must have felt 80 days…

When we got there, the 3 of them lay in a dark corner while we set up the stage, and a muddy canal slugged past outside. We had no idea how Chester would receive us – the DJ before us played high-powered party funk. We pruned the quiet tracks from our set, Lee perked up a bit and the manager set up a futon for Cate and Belle to collapse for an hour. They looked like illustrations from a medical journal.

But consummate professionals nonetheless. They rise when I wake them, and take to the stage without whingeing. Belle has a yellow bucket by her side, and the set begins. It’s alright. Yeh, it’s a roomful of drunks but we’ve got enough people properly listening for it to work. A young couple at the front know every single word and move to every beat, and even the bar-owls at the very back have turned their faces to us… Until some geezer starts yelling abuse.

“From down South are ye? Posh fuckers! Curtains? Posh fuckers!”

And on and on. As if everyone from south of Coventry lives in high luxury.

“Mate”

I remind him,

“You live in Chester”.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter – there’s sometimes someone who has it in for us. I just don’t get why they still stay for the gig. He carries on shouting things for the rest of the set. I don’t get it. F’koff, if you hate it.

He’s not the prime specimen though – while I’m doing Bomb Tesco acapella, this double glazed human in a white shirt sways through the crowd to stand directly in front of me, crooked-smiled, trying to grab the mic,

“Mate – mate! Lemme jussave the mic fwone minnit, one minnit yeh?”

I”m doing a f’king acapella bruv, I’m not about to do requests, trust me. Get off, get away. Several fathoms into the piece he spirals off to shag a wall or something. Meanwhile, the band have struck up and the plague has announced itself for the sixth time through Belle, into her yellow bucket. She barely breaks the bassline for it though, and I’m awestruck by her. Trooper.

Once the gig’s done, a tall bald man rushes up grinning.

“That was great mate, brilliant”

Tall bald man… Aren’t you the heckler?

“No! No. I’m not a heckler.”

It is, it’s the man yelling challenges.

“I’m not a heckler, I just like to get involved.”

Like a fist gets involved in a face, or a boot in an arse. Note to self, bloke:

… Nah actually, forgetit. Here we are on someone else’s Saturday, asking them to listen, and at least he’s engaged in it.

Chester: most definitely engaged. We ended the night at our mate Louise’s house, singing All Hail to Cate and Belle for soldiering through the Plague to do a beautiful performance, and wake after a short sleep for the long drive back to Brighton, during which Jean Claude Van Cockup broke down for the third time.

One more gig to go…