This was to be our last gig before Dave left the band. There was originally supposed to be a gig with in 2009 with Inkubus Sukkubus but was sadly called off as we were unable to work out a replacement in time for it.
I don’t remember too much about this gig to be honest although I’m pretty sure the sound turned out to be pretty good. The setlist was also interesting in that 6 of the 9 tracks played were ones not released on Eprit d’Escalier.
The Grapes has since sadly ceased to be a live music venue in Sheffield, which is a crying shame. Although a small room, it usually provided a great intimate venue for the smaller local bands.
The Moon was a new pub in Upperthorpe in Sheffield. It had taken over the rather ominous looking Office, a pub which had a little bit of a reputation, but was close in the side of the city where of our friends lived. They had a regular meet up on a Friday evening for a few beers, and as they were looking for a new place, installed themselves in The Moon tempted by a good selection of beers and a friendly landlord.
Tony, one of our regular roadies spotted they had a backroom and took a look and convinced them to let him put on gig. They didn’t have a stage, more like the inverse of a stage, with a sunken floor at the back of the room with raise seating around it, but it looked like a great space for a couple of bands.
Tim of Nightingale Audio was quickly volunteered to sort out the PA and do the mixing. I was working with some Leeds Students at the time who had access to a swanky HD video camera (which were rather expensive at the time!) and arranged for Andy Hawnt to do some filming as well. Tim also offered to catch the audio separately to supplement the video. (although this didn’t quite work out as well as planned)
It wasn’t hard to get Dyonisis to sign up for supporting at all and then Cis, Kate and Erica decided they wanted to put on a Belly Dance Performance, complete with Isis Wings for Andromeda as the lead track!
We had a pretty good turn out but the slightly out of town location made it mostly a “Sheffield regulars” events, but that didn’t matter really. There was an “incident” towards the end of the gig where I crashed my guitar headstock into Kate’s leading me to being quite out of tune for White Wedding. It sounded pretty bad consequently, but it really didn’t matter 🙂
“I’ve not seen many reviews of the gig of course, but the chaos of the soundcheck didn’t result in a bad night at all. If the music is good, the audience don’t seem to mind technical and running issues I guess :D. Mind you, being as there were so many bands there, I’m not entirely sure how many of the people there were actual punters. Kev will probably be able to answer that. Our set was interesting. It was pretty close to the West Street Live set with a track dropped out. Mostly stuff that isn’t on Esprit as well. I managed to snap a string in the 2nd song which was a little annoying as I’ve been enjoying playing the Les Paul Gothic at the moment and didn’t want to change! After that we had a repeat of the drum machine not starting quick enough on ‘Echoes’ which happened at a previous gig. As I have to count the beats at the start of that track to know where to come in, it meant we had to restart the track which never looks good. Apparently it’s something to do with there not being enough space at the start of the midi track for MojoJojo to get ready, or something. We played some nearly ultra new stuff; Killing Floor and 2MinutesHate have only been played live once before. They both sounded very odd on stage and I wasn’t sure how they were going down, but both got a good round of applause. I also managed to slide a chunk of skin off my strumming hand thumb. Serves me right for poncing around with my guitar I think.
Next gig is in Leeds on the 23rd with Zeitgeist Zero and Memento Mori, and then a new one at the Grapes (not played there in AAGES) on the 30th with Cobwebs (which I think is their live debut?)”
