This mark in the back stage area, proves that there is another band called the Strands, somewhere in the universe!
Dean's getting worried and frustrated at the lack of audience!
Setting up!Two nights out in a row! On Friday I went along to the Lamp with my bro for a few too many beers and games of drunken Pool, and to listen to some live bands. I didn't really want to go out because I was going on a trip to Liverpool on the Saturday night to 'The Cavern Club' to watch 'The Strands' and begin work on filming a rockumentary about the highs and lows of being in a touring, unsigned band! But I promised my friend Jo that I would go to the Lamp with her as she didn't have anyone to go with and really wanted to see the bands.
I awoke the next morning with a fuzzy brain and a dry throat, and wondered how I was going to make it through another evening out. By around 1 o'clock however, I was feeling fine and looked forward to the arrival of the Strands "Mega Bus" which would take us on our journey to the "European city of culture" (at least until midnight that evening, when the title would be handed over to another city)
I had spoken previously to Dean (the singer) at work, about doing a rockumentary, purely for shits and giggles, and he seemed up for it! The trip to the Cavern was largely uneventful until we reached the city center, were John (the drummer) who was driving, decided to ignore the satnav on 3 occasions, meaning lots of wrong turns and confusion, with the air turning blue (mostly by John himself) until the satnav finally corrected Johns errors!
The band set up and did their soundcheck and then we had a few hours to kill, so we took a walk to find something to eat. We walked past a Subway, but the general feeling that a McDonalds or Burger King would be more suited, so I showed the way to the Burger King I usually go to when I visit the Cavern Club, but when we arrived there were about a hundred thousand people in the vicinity, probably to do with the last night of city of culture status, we tried both "eating joints" but the cues were horrendous and we were getting very hungry, so we headed back to Subways, were I had my first ever Subways sandwhich, breaking my Subways virgin status.
Back in the club the first band went on stage to a reasonable audience (they were local lads) they were then were followed by an Italian rock band who were horrendous and managed to clear out most of the people who had hung around, this and the fact that there was a local slimeball promoter running the evening (I say running in the loosest possible sense, because all he did all night was stand at the door to the live music room, like a guard dog, trying to charge £3.50 entry fee, meaning most people turned back and stayed in the front part of the club) so when The Strands came on, they played a blinding set to about 10 people, which is a hard job to do, to capture the presence and spirit of things when your playing to an empty room, but as I was filming the gig they managed to do a respectable job! Luckily, due to my filming duties I had to remain professional and drink very little, but after the gig, I started to feel very tired and looked forward to returning home. The band were extremely disappointed as they had basically paid £70 to the venue, just to play to an empty room. Whilst it was a low for the band and prompted a quiet and reserved ride home, it was good for my film, because as I had said to them, the aim of the film is to get the highs AND lows of touring! The "mega bus" as it turned out, wasn't that mega, because it didn't have a radio and no heating, which meant for a cold ride home, and to add insult to injury, our boiler has broken down meaning a cold bed when I got home! I was home for 2:30am and straight into that cold bed!
Oh yeah and this week, I have mostly been amusing myself by leaving random lines from movies on my friends Facebook pages!
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