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Live shot by Adam Williams
There were supposed to be more gigs this year! Returning to play Goth City in 2018 fired us a bit so we started to work a bit on fixing up old demos and getting “New Dave” up to speed on them. The idea was to practice and see out 2018 to get ready for a 2019 of action. We’ve caught the bug and were enthusiastic for more and then… life happened.
Some stuff changed during 2019 which make getting together really difficult and effectively put the whole thing back on hiatus. Great! We effectively paused till midway through the year till Derek nudged us about playing the festival he was putting on in our home town. Playing a local festival was too much of an opportunity to turn down, especially with how the line up was shaping up so we tried to make it work.
Again, we started up with practices, this time working in the increased amount of travelling needed making it a bit more awkward. Then, just as we started to find out feet again, the weather went nuts and started flooding South Yorkshire! Lined up practices fell away due to transport chaos and time continued to march on adding additional pressures but we just had to ride it out. We managed to get another two songs down, meaning we could tweak the set a little adding Fragile World and Sleepwalking in and then finally ready!
…but again it was like slipping on old shoes:
I think it went well! I don’t remember any mess ups at all, and being sneaky and getting to the venue super early to get a proper soundcheck with a willing sound guy really helped.
We finished, again with a similar plan to last time: See the year out then get our heads down for more gigs and finishing that second album. 2020 would be ours for the taking…. I suspect the closing of the venue shortly after this gig was a harbinger of what 2020 was going to bring us.
We were laid out in a long peaceful rest having spluttered to an unfortunate demise in March 2009 with Dave’s sudden parting from the band. Although Steve and I had muttered about doing things, and occasionally fired up old demos and tinkered with them, nothing was happening and then…
Hi Kelly, I hope you are well! Just wondering – would TWOAF be at all interested in performing at Goth City Festival next year? Obviously it’s all for charity do it’d be expenses only but you guys were an important part of the Yorkshire scene so it would be great recognise that by having you on the bill
Goth City Promotions – 28th May 2017
Well, that was unexpected. We mulled on it, and responded an enthusiastic, but really only half believed yes. We cast a request out for a vocalist out into Facebook mostly, I mean there didn’t seem to be much left out there where you could get the attention of any one for this sort of thing. We didn’t get many bites to be honest, until a friend of mine suggested they wanted a go at singing and we jumped at the chance.
By the end of February, we’d confirmed he could actually sing and got back to Joel to confirm it was on!
Throughout 2018 we wrangled our lives to around to start fitting back a regularly practice and start remembering everything. It turns out that that you can accumulate quite a bit of rush by not playing for nearly 10 years. We had to replace some kit, the older drum machine and Korg D8 were something we no longer wanted to (or needed) to rely on, combining them into something sleeker and more newfangled. Kate pretty much replaced her entire rig but then, we kinda expected that. I just blew the dust of my Gibson Gothic and Pod XT Live. They work.
Eventually October rolled along without us quite squeezing as many practised in as we really wanted. I suspect that was us remembering our old weekly come rain or shine practices which kept us quite solid, but to be honest, after we snuck up onto the stage after Isolation Division finished their set and go ourselves ready. It felt right to be back up there and once started, for me at least, felt like I’d never been away.
The event felt pretty joyous, probably helped by playing to a lot of familiar faces who had made the journey up to Leeds from Sheffield to catch us one more. Thanks to all of you again. But also, there were new faces who we hoped enjoyed it.
The rest of the night was pretty drink fuelled for me. Playing on the same bill as Rome Burns felt like a return to the golden years somewhat and filled me with hope for a load more exciting gigs to come. Sadly, that didn’t happen, but more to come on that…
– Kelly
Memory of a Festival: 031: Goth City 3: Season of the Witch
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 🙂
Kelly from The Way of All Flesh tells me later that he was a bit worried about following LBD based on how strong their set was and how well it had gone down.
Kev Morris TWF Magazine Issue 8
However, TWOAF are as strong and reliable as always. If you like your Goth traditional, then you know you’re going to enjoy TWOAF. I don’t think they play any new songs tonight, so it’s going through the motions from debut ‘Espirit D’Escalier’, reminding everyone the strength of what they have done. I would not have minded a couple of newer numbers so they could demonstrate the strength of what they’re doing
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(7)
