As mentioned yesterday I was in Leicester at the weekend, accidentally seeing the Richard III procession but purposefully there to do a double dose of ROCK.
The first shift commenced outside Stayfree Studio at noon, where I met Mr F Machine to watch the various bands lurking around outside waiting to be let in. Everyone was dressed according to their GENRE - the Britop Dads looked very Britpop, the Metal Band looked very Metal, and we looked very half-arsed indie. All was right with the world!
Inside we were joined first by Mr T "The Tiger" McClure and then by Mr T Pattison, who had probably been waiting outside building himself for the deluge of Very Mild Joshing RE: Prolapse Gigs that ensued. Once that was out of the way we moved onto the business of ROCK, rampaging through versions of the remaining four songs we had been rehearsing ready for recording - Can We Be Friends?, In The North Stand, The Future Is Amazing and Get Over It. The original idea was to have another practice before going back to the studio, but we WHIPPED through them so easily there didn't seem to be any need. Tim suggested having a go at History's Rewritten too and, after a bit of persuading, we did. It was dead good!
We were joined by Mrs E Pattison for about 10 minutes (on her way into town for the procession) making us briefly QUORATE for the first time in ages before she left closely followed by Tom, heading off to ORCHESTRA. This left "The Dresden Validators" to have a runthrough of a couple of other things and vaguely discuss album titles. I told them how GRATE the "album" is sounding so far, and discovered that they hadn't heard the latest mixes so promised to get that DONE, and also to sort out another studio day. Who knows? We might get it finished THIS YEAR!
With all that sorted out Tim and I headed into town, him to the procession and me to Cafe Bruxelles for my second slice of ROCK for the day - the traditional post-Leicesterval afternoon of Totally Acoustic, curated by Mr A Hale. I'd been worried that nobody would be there due to the Royal Events, but there was a nice cosy crowd and a delightful set of acts, including Alex, Mr Joey Chickenskin and Mr D Ransome. Unfortunately I missed large chunks of everyone else's sets due to INTENSELY SLOW bar service. It's a lovely place, Cafe Bruxelles, but crikey oh riley they can't half make a fuss of getting you a beer. At one point I was waiting 15 MINUTES for them to find a pump that was actually working!
Apart from that it was lovely to see people and also lovely to be able to take to the stage and do THIS:
It was a slightly odd set botched together with suggestions and vague ideas - Red and White Sockets was a request from Mr M Whitaker, who had brought his son along for his First Ever Gig (always an honour to be there for such an event!) and History's Re-written was there because I'd enjoyed doing it earlier with the band - but it all seemed to go off OK, leaving me with plenty of time to actually GET some beers before the King went past! If only all gigs could climax so regally!
