Llanelli gig review

[Mark Foster]

I'm not sure whether last nights gig was the best I've been to or the worst.
I turn up at 6:30pm with my bass for a sound check only to be told our
singer has gone home ill. I get someone to take my bass home and sit at the
bar listening to the other bands sound checking. The entire night hinged on
the next decision, a glass of juice or a pint of Guinness.
Tonight I decide to go for the Guinness.
We then get a phone call at the pub to say that the other main band of the
night can't make it either. So that's the two headlining bands, Nikolai and
Turbo Shandy dropped out and two bands, The Need and The Capris, who have
only played one gig each left.
The singer for the Capris offered to sing for Turbo Shandy if we played some
covers that he knew. So we drew up a list of seven covers that we used to
play. The ex-singer of TS then turns up and she volunteers to sing a few
songs. Sorted-ish. Due to politics it's decided that TS are still headlining
despite the fact we were using a substitute singer.
I'd forgotten how nervous the singer for the Capris gets before a gig, he
must have had at least half a bottle of whisky before getting on stage. This
does improve his performance though, especially when he falls about to the
Cure and Smiths covers (complete with gladioli) that they do. The drummer
was getting noticeably slower as the songs went on. He later explained to me
that was because the flares he was wearing were bigger than usual and kept
on getting caught on his bass pedal.
Next up were the Need, whose singer started the set by jumping off one of
the p.a's speakers, which fell off the stage and nearly crushed me. I lift
the speaker back onto the stage and they carry on, playing a blinding set of
catchy pub punk tunes. Enjoyment.
Then it's time for Turbo Shandy. The singer for the Capris had still been
putting the whiskies back after their set and now had to be carried onto
stage. I'd almost forgotten we were playing and had overdone the Guinness
and our guitarist wasn't the most sober person in the pub. The set started
with me dropping the bass guitar I'd borrowed from the Capris and taking a
chunk out of the bottom of it. Main problem with the set was that pissed
singer from the Capris, who didn't know the lyrics, was trying to outsing
ex-Turbo Shandy singer, who is a trained opera singer. Our guitarist was
trying to walk off stage after every song, I'd gone into my maths teacher
mode and gave him a row every time he tried to leave. He did finally manage
to escape as did the ex-singer. Actually now I think about it, they used to
be a couple so maybe that's where they went. We carried on as a three piece
playing "living on a prayer", I'd never played it before but I managed to
get a bass line going about half way through. The singer from the Need must
have caught up with the drinking by then as he joined us on stage and punk'd
the song up a bit.
We were just about the leave when someone in the crowd shouts out "play the
fish song!". We're in trouble. The Fish Song is a bit of a cult classic in
town. It's a song I wrote at least ten years ago when I only knew three
chords and I've played it in every band I've been in since and at every open
mic night. I thought I'd finally got rid of that bloody song but someone
wants to hear it so I have no choice but to get up to the mic. I've not got
the best of voices normally and it's even worse after all the fags and
Guinness of last night. Last night my vocals were a combination of cat from
Red Dwarf and Anne from little Britain (aaah ah ahh). The lyrics are usually
just, I like fish, you know I like fish but in all the excitement I decide
to improvise, wooh little fishy, mr bitch-arse fishy. Standing ovation,
carried of the stage and offered sex by every woman in the pub. I'm glad I
didn't decide to dink orange juice now.