03.07.2006 12:39 - The Last Gig
I used to be in a band called "The Simpletons", in Birmingham. We were a good little band, but we had a few problems with getting gigs. Our best gig was at the Railway Tavern in Digbeth, where Kevin, who originally formed the band, had singlehandedly managed to organise a charity "Rubery Sound" night featuring us and two other bands from Rubery. We went down very well, too. Everyone wanted us to play support slots, but, as you can imagine, promises made at a gig aren't very substantial.
Fast forward to a couple of months. Kevin has been offered a paying gig for us at a local youth centre. We are, by now, desperate to try and land a gig. Even with our two polished demos (of which, more later) and our successful "Rubery Sound" gig, no-one wants to know. Things are somewhat tense, so we plump for the gig. It is, apparently, an "AIDS awareness" night.
Details come in about the gig. It is not a full-kit gig. It is a small PA gig. They don't want it too loud. Mistake number one. This is beginning to sound like the Firkin gig where we turned up to find that we were advertised as "acoustic blues", despite us being neither blues nor acoustic. Caution is thrown to the wind. We turn up. The place is full of kids. No, not a good audience, a bad one. 13-year-old kids. Mistake Number Two.
Mistake Number Three was that the people who were organising the "awareness night" handed out about 3000 lubricated condoms before we played.
Can you imagine to what use these condoms were put?
I'll tell you. They were used as missiles. We struck up a tune, and a hail of condoms started. They were bloody painful, and made a mess.
However they were not as painful as the humiliation of being bombarded with condoms, and then cigarette butts. Finally, just as Kevin was about to go into the third song, some big fat woman marched up and, waving what can only be described as a large plastic willy under Kevin's nose, demanded that we cut the entertainment short so she could show the kids how to put on a condom on it.
By which time, of course, the kids didn't have any condoms.
We legged it before they could re-arm themselves.
Shortly after that, the band broke up.
