matt_organic

Did the support gig with Apartment 26 last night. It was a lot of fun and we played well, although it wasn't anywhere near as important a gig as we thought it would be. Apartment 26 have changed a lot since their first album, now sounding like a vaguely annoying Incubus/Lostprophets hybrid. The industrial sound is more or less completely gone, and they were annoying in that they didn't in fact play anything at all from their first album, which must have been irritating for the 3 or 4 people who came along to see them. Yes, that's right. 3 or 4. We managed to rake in more people than they did, which was quite pleasant. We're used to playing to a big empty room anyway so that didn't bother us. Especially since for half the gig I was running around in front of the stage like a loon, flailing in my 'demented ringmaster' costume (as it was dubbed). You see, I had decided to wear my duster suit and waistcoat that are tagged as my Halloween dress. The only problem being that it got incredibly hot, thus provoking an unpleasant striptease for the audience as I eventually worked down to being topless for the last track. Lucky them, eh?

Apartment 26 were ok-ish to play with, although they had 'requested' that no-one else use the dressing room, which meant we had to change and store our gear in the venue garage. As my friend Ryan said, not gutwrenchingly nasty and partially understandable since their tour group had 9 people in, but also pissily offensive due to being symptomatic of the rock star bullshit you get from bands who've sold a few records. We got a soundcheck, but they didn't deign to talk to us in any way. So it goes. What got to me far more about my brief visit to York is that this is the first time I've been there where I've stepped off the train and haven't felt like I've got home. It's as alien to me now as Blackpool is. The people rather than the place. This is a depressing line of thought so I won't pursue it further.

And I have a beer festival to work at all week. Joy.