So, a pure sublime return gig @ The Albert on Saturday. Thanks to Kev, Deb, Stu Cakes and This Mono Galaxy for all their support.
I wasn't sure about the idea of playing as a trio. But we did it, and it worked.
I was fully prepared to call it a day if it didn't go to plan. With this in mind we felt it was important to go back to basics, and so we played the whole set as a three-piece with no guest vocalists or musicians. Just guitar, bass, a bit of baritone guitar on a couple of songs, DJ Ruse on electrickery and fx.
I think that's the first time in over a year that we've played Brighton without a guest singer for us (me!) to hide behind. I love to sing but I'm not into the idea of being The Singer. I managed to reign in my tendency towards ludicrous volume and the whole thing was way more consistent. It felt to all of us that we were playing in sympathy with one another.
And it was effortless frankly. No hassles, no complications. General consensus was that's the best we've sounded in a long time.
Let's just say that the last time we played Brighton was utter, utter chaos and confusion. Lack of sleep, money issues, no time to eat, sexual tensions and chemical abuse left some of us in no fit state to perform. So this was a case of make or break.
We played a version of Don't Eat the Sweets with a longer, free-form intro, followed by High Tide, Sumni, and a fresh version of Now You Know, which is now called Now You Know You Know. ;^)
The set was much more representative of the way we want to sound than before. With songs like You're The One Who Started It there was often a tendency to sound a bit too rock. We've now got a set which has all the right ingredients - the bass, the beats, the drones and the right kind of guitar (fucked up / white noise / reverse-reverb / fuzz-wah strangled and tamed).
A brief look at the photographic evidence = me looking as pale as an ice-berg and as thin as a rain, the boys having a jolly ol' time going with the flow. And no fits of giggles this time. Hopefully we'll get some more snaps up once they've been cleared by MsDee.
Well. I guess we still have a few tricks up our sleeves.
The Mekano Set
