Notes

Anti-Nazi League benefit. Support from Eaglehead and Pig Unit.

Headstone Says..

Well, the Nazis got smashed once again, and later (in our own little way) so did we.

Eaglehead went on first and played a blinder. Unfortunately, nobody gave them any idea as to when to stop. They eventually finished with a ferocious cover of "These Boots Are Made for Walking", while Pig Unit and Wilson shuffled around nervously, wondering how the hell they were supposed to squeeze their sets into the sixty minutes that remained before closing time.

Credit to the Pig Unit boys, who showed immense courtesy in cutting short their set, especially in the light of the fact that several dozen people were going entirely mental apeshit at their every move. It's a heavy rap-rock sound that they make, but they are probably rather more enticing than that makes them sound. Just one quibble - couldn't they change their name to Pigs Unite? Or even Pigs United? (Pig City? - sounds like an Iggy bootleg...) (Pigs Villa - now you're just being silly...)

Wilson made it to the stage at about 10:45pm. A number of the players were quite wound up, something that was immediately apparent as we kicked off with a newly beefed-up Police Chief . Possibly because there had been a drum kit there before, the stage seemed unusually spacious. I remembered all the shite European rock bands that I had seen on TV shows over there, who always seemed to have a moment when the long-haired guitar nutter suddenly runs out to the front, stuffs his foot on a monitor and gurns madly as the only audible bit of guitar on the whole record suddenly blurts out from the whirring of massed eighties synthesisers. And that's what I did. Later on, for reasons to do with getting over-excited, I did the James Brown thing and fell down flat on my back mid-solo. Misery and Russ later expressed some concern about my physical wellbeing. When I revealed that I'd meant to do that, their concern switched to my mental condition. Stevie G was a rock god (great equal of heaven, why do you not grow sideburns?) and there was enthusiastic shouting all round.

Unable to do anything about the fact that the bar was on the brink of closing, we ploughed on, and incredibly the audience stayed with us. Complete strangers were dancing down the front. Somebody called us "Mental Mondays" and bought some records. Things were looking up.

Altogether, we had gone into this night quite confident. Then we ran into all kinds of unexpected technical difficulties at soundcheck and found ourselves pushed back into some desperate post-drinking graveyard shift, to the point where that confidence was almost entirely dissipated, but STILL we managed to come up smelling of the finest Morroccan. Mental middle-aged sociopath crew makes desperate last stand, achieves last minute home win. The crowd goes mad. Well, Lindsey does anyway.

We bludgeon the Buffalo Sniper to death, and as the last howls of feedback fade away a piano rings out through the P.A. It's Mister Noel Coward, and he's singing: "Don't let's be beastly to the Germans..."