There was a band already on stage. At first I thought there must be some mistake. There was a lady on stage sawing something in half. Then I realised, no, it wasn’t a conjuring act. She was playing the cello. With her, there was a man in a leather jacket with a remarkably sweaty head, and another man plucking a chicken; no, on second thoughts, he was plucking the meaty strings of a big double bass.

The sound was terrible.

Dismayed, I asked a chap beside me, ‘are they The Lights?’

‘No’ he said. He gave me the name, but I won’t repeat it here in case I get a punch in the mouth for saying they sounded terrible. I’m sure the songs were alright, but the venue just didn’t suit them. Without being dismissive, it belonged in the kind of venue where the floor doesn’t stick to your feet with all the beer that has been spilt through the years. They could have turned the venue upside down and everybody would have still been in place, stood on the ceiling.

Anyway; good luck to them; even though I was of the opinion that it was all out of tune. People were mainly ignoring them and talking loudly to each other. It was only after a few minutes that I realised what was wrong. It wasn’t the band that was out of tune; it was the audience who were talking out of key.

I asked somebody else beside me, a young man with no chin and ears like wings, ‘what time are The Lights on?’ He had such an oddly shaped head, I felt like I was back in the hall of mirrors.

He just shrugged and waggled his ears at me.

Fine

I guess I’ll just wait and drink.

Somebody behind me heard the question and said, ‘they’re on last, mate. I think this band and the next are playing support for them.’
Oh, right. Cheers.’

‘Have you heard them before?’

‘No. I heard about them through my website. Thought I’d check them out’

‘If these guys don’t get signed, then there’s no justice.’

I presumed from that, he was actually in the band, but no.

I made some notes as the conjuring act that was on, came to a crescendo. The audience actually shut up and clapped, which was nice of them. I couldn’t tell if it was gratitude or relief.

The next band sauntered on and I hated them on sight. In particular, the guitarist looked like a cross between Justin Timberlake and Shirley Temple. His golden locks flounced as he walked, highlighted by the fetching red tank top he was wearing. He looked like his mother had gotten him ready for Sunday school and he’s snuck out the back and come here. Jesus Wept. The drummer thankfully was hidden behind the kit. The bass player… well, all bass players are naturally a step above normal musicians so I’ll leave him alone.

The singer looked like he’d been cut out of a pre-teen magazine. A Bunty reader’s wet dream of chiselled cheeks and dirty blonde hair. He looked like he should have been going out with a Cindy doll on My Little Pony. He had about as much charisma as a lobotomised goldfish and when he sang, it was with the studied pose of a complete, and utter, wanker. He just came across as the reason why people walk up to strangers in the street and punch them.

The girls at the front loved him. He was probably going to the same school as them. Probably shared cosmetic tips and was in touch with his feminine side.

This was cosmetic music. Pretty boys in nice clothes with nice songs for their nice friends from the nice school in the nice neighbourhood having a nice night with their nice instruments before going to a nice wine bar in the nice part of town to sip a nice glass of spring water before going to their nice houses to do their nice homework for the nice teachers who say it would be nice if they passed their nice exams and became nice accountants.

Unless of course they get signed, in which case they’ll be doing cocaine by the end of the year; but I hope not. It’s bound to fuck up their GCSE’s, and the last thing we need is another bunch of pretty boys clogging up the airways until they get a job in Holly Oaks. Let’s just say, if lettuce learned how to play guitar, and had a father who was a chartered accountant, this is what it would sound and look like.

Rock and Rolex

Bollocks

I was saved from having to watch any more by the arrival of a chap called Phil. He was with his mates and he had a plaster cast. The tossed salad on stage faded into the background as Phil showed me the pictures of his broken leg and the ugly zipped up gash along his leg. Twenty seven stitches and four pins were holding his leg together along with the plaster cast, stitches and four staples. Four staples; that’s more than the book I’m reading. And yet, chances are, he can still dance better than I can. Perhaps if he broke the other leg I might stand a sporting chance but I was too polite to ask.

The band ended; bedtime probably.

The stage lights changed to a cool blue, glinting off a big red white and blue mid-tom. How very American. The next band came on, the stage lights casting huge shadows of them on the back wall. I watched them set up. It was either that or looking at another picture of the crusty scab on the leg of Phil, and that was one gash I really didn’t want to see again.

I heard the name of the band from somebody on the mixing desk, a wide black guy who looked like he’d been pretty tall once, but a piano had fallen on him in some cartoon life.

The band; The Lights

I took out my notepad and prepared myself to be unimpressed.

They didn’t look too impressed themselves; relaxed, confident, pretty much a self contained bunch. I got the impression that if a fight broke out…well, they’d get battered; but at least they’d go down together.

I was distracted again by a young woman, whose name escapes me for the moment. I hadn’t seen her in quite some time.

She said, ‘would you like to see my puppies?’

‘Eh…’

She showed me the pictures on her mobile phone; her puppies; two of them; nothing rude; they were asleep in a basket.

‘They’re my babies,’ she cooed.

I refrained from saying ‘yes, the one on the left has got your nose.’

I just made some kind of approving noise that was drowned out by a thunderous roll on the drums that came out of the speakers like one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. A sound like that in nature is usually followed by a flash of lightening. In this case it was the young dirty blonde singer who was playing a black Cadillac of a bass. No posturing; no salad; just a rhythmic, surprisingly melodic sucker punch of a song that stopped the crowd talking for the first time that night. If the god of ‘Rawk music’ had turned up at that point, he would have just been punched in the throat by one of the band. They were going for it. The guitarist was crouched and must have been leaving skin on the strings, he was powering away so much. The drummer, brought to mind John Bonham, a blur of sticks, intent on getting everything out of the kit that rocked as he played.



I moved up closer to the stage. The drummer had stubble that you could have sanded down varnished floor with.

The song ended with a fuck off dead stop that left a chasm of silence for an instant that your ears could ring away in, and then they were off again, mid applause.

This band was down and dirty and bringing it to us. I hear the words ‘pill head ravers.’ If any of these guys had a father who was a chartered accountant, he’d deny all knowledge of knowing them and lock his cocaine away with his collection of 1920’s porn.

The music was strong and muscular and battered into shape by a powerful backbeat. One of the audience, up front was either dancing or having an epileptic fit, thrashing around like he was claustrophobic and trying to escape out of a bag. It could have been a rebirth trauma. I don’t know. The song ended but the dance macabre continued.

The singer laughed and said ‘security! We’ve go a wild one'.

And then it all changed.

A little sleight of hand on stage as the guitarist and bass player swapped instruments and the drummer necked a beer like a heron swallowing a fish.

The next song was played with brushes on the drums. A slow, classic song that would have given even the bouncers a lump in the throat; if they hadn’t have been standing on the neck of the claustrophobic dancer.

Song four

Four taps on the sticks

An outstanding drum roll

And then another look at those puppies on the mobile again

By the time I’d extracted myself the song was over but from the roar and the applause it was a highlight.

On it went.

I put my notebook away and made my way over to the other side of the stage; through the warm bodies and rambunctiousness; wondering where on earth I could use the word rambunctious in this pseudo review.

So, stage right I stood, and looked up to see the singer and the guitarist facing each other off; staring each other down; a palpable tension, taut like a string about to snap; what had I missed?

Then tap tap tap tap on the drum sticks, tension snaps, grins and the drummer launches into a roll that Animal of the Muppets would have eaten his own furry arse to pull out of the bag and the crowd erupts into cheers for a song they obviously know. The guitarist crashes headlong through the first bars of the song with a sly grin and the singer grabs the microphone by the throat and rams the last song down it.

It muscles its way out of the PA for a couple of minutes and then changes tack with a clever sucker punch of a switch into a thumping funky finale with a bass line so clever it had a PhD in chemistry; the guitarist thrashing up the scale, ascending and bending the strings, pursued relentlessly by the drummer, sweating blood and booze behind the kit; I had a rush of adrenaline that made it seem as if the song was going to take off…

I noticed once more, the red, white and blue floor Tom when the drummer bounced his stick off it and caught it on the rebound, just as the song came to a breathless end.

Red White and Blue

The Lights have just declared independence.

Tonight, the Musicians Republic of Music belonged to them.

Okay

So I was impressed.

I hung around until I could sneak past the bouncer at the side of the stage.

I wanted to talk to the band

TO BE CONTINUED