We were on the road by 2.45pm ahead of our first gig in more than 5 years. After some discussion about preferable route, we were over the Runcorn Bridge before we knew it and Andy slotted a Sex Pistols tape into the stereo. Some two hours later we were at Junktion 7, a fine looking venue right on the Canning Circus junction just on the edge of Nottingham city centre.
We soon met up with Sam, the gig organiser, and Marc Elston of The Liberty Ship and were told that Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian was no longer able to fulfil his Dj-ing duties for the evening so the soundcheck was going to be later than planned. We went our separate ways to meet up with friends before returning to soundcheck just over an hour before we were due to go on. It was even later before we eventually got done and by the time we'd finished we had just 20 minutes to try and find and eat some food before we had to be on stage. A burger bar close by was the only option, but we still found Sam with his heart in his mouth as we got back to the venue with just seconds to spare.
But wait - important things like tuning up and changing into our Team Hellfire jerseys, specially commissioned for the occasion, had to be done before we could kick off the night.
It was 9pm when we eventually nervously edged into the audience's view, 15 minutes late.
Uncle Sam - the song formerly known as The Anglo Saxons - was our opener; it fitted the occasion because the night was a Stop-The-War Coalition benefit and Uncle Sam was rewritten about the recent Iraq conflict. The nerves remained with us for the first few bars but had been dispelled by the time we reached the chorus. We did the quiet middle-eight as well as we've ever done it and a slight mistake on the end by me was the only glitch otherwise. The reaction from the audience seemed good and we soon launched into our second song.
Pop Outing is probably the best song of the batch we've written since becoming a three- piece and we played it with some confidence. Corporate Action, which Neal dedicated to the fat cats in the audience, was next up and cemented a good solid opening.
Gone To Ground, though, was false-started once as Neal struggled to find the right notes to play at the beginning. We'd obviously earned the audience's support, though, because they didn't give us a hard time and by the time we reached the slower, but hypnotic chorus it was all forgotten. The difficult transitions were all negotiated well and we were back on track.
Journey End To End was the one that I was most nervous about. The verses rely heavily on the rhythm and I was minus one drum from my usual set-up, so had to change the way I played it. And if we don't get the sound right, it can sound rubbish, so... fortunately it seemed to go fine and my worries were unfounded.
The Best Laugh I Ever Had was the one old song that we rekindled for the gig and we could more or less play it from memory. We've had to fine tune the arrangement a little bit to make up for there being no Colin, but it remains a damn fine song in 3/4 time.
Our last tune was billed as being the "weirdest thing you'll have ever heard", but knowing some of the people in the audience and what they listen to, I don't think that's necessarily true! But Spud-u-like is certainly strange, mainly due to the discordant fighting between the guitar and bass in the first part of the chorus. Again, I thought we played it almost as well as we've ever done and then... played it again in the possibly mistaken belief that we'd been requested to do an encore!
All in all, a highly enjoyable and hopefully quite entertaining return to gigging. We're eager to do it all again soon, so if you want to put us on in a town near you anytime, get in touch at hellfiresermons@yahoo.co.uk
29/6/03 - Alan
Below are some photos taken by Mike Walpole in Nottingham. Click on the thumbnail for the full-size photo
