Gentlemen & Assassins: Live Birth, Camden London…The Underworld
If you only have to deal with it for a day or so, the very particular sense of congestion, traffic, ceaseless movement and over all cacophony of a landscape in which, unlike New York, one can still clearly see a large chunk of sky, can be exhilarating. Stay any longer and prepare for a hustle unlike any other.
We were on our way to The Underworld in Camden London. Gratefully in good hands: homeboy Andrew Rastegarnia expertly navigates our way through the city in his van.
Other musicians, I’m sure quite wisely, would have chosen another venue for their maiden voyage: it being a pretty high profile joint ‘n’ all. We took what we could get and what we got, pardon me, was a lot.
Brian Viglione, who had played here before with The Dresden Dolls and the World Inferno Friendship Society, was greeted by Julie Sandblad-Colin our booker. We tumbled our way in hauling gear. There was nothing unfamiliar here. A nice open, dark, wooden space, a typically musty, boozy, mop bucket odor and the sound of ladders being shifted around and white noise fluctuating as the tech crew set up for the evening.
The good news about headlining a gig is that sound-check is over with first. The downside is that everyone gets to check you out as the fumbling about, stage positioning, the untangling of chords and cables ensues. This was our very first show and although I felt a surprising confidence, mostly an excited anticipation of actually playing, there was also a hollow, hunger-like growling of inner fears rumbling about through my body. It could also have been the rich Iranian food Andrew had served us; couldn’t tell
Our stage crew got us set up and I sensed that our monitor man Brian, though just doing his job as usual, was particularly intrigued by the noises we were making. Sxip sound checking his penny whistles brought smiles of surprise all around and instantly everyone relaxed and we knew it was going to be good. Loud, but good.
Interviews next. We were lucky to have them although I must say there were some rare pedigrees present here.
On the bill were bands:
A. Bo Ningen, amazing, enthusiastic, kind men with hair that made them appear like Kabuki weeping willows and music that screeched and droned like a noisy early Pink Floyd or Can mixed with a My Bloody Valentine/Spacemen 3/Boredoms hybrid. Great stuff.
B. Pettybone. These bad ass women just chucked me back back to the mosh pit days hanging with old mate Lori Barbero of Babes in Toyland. That’s right folks I WAS there “Back in the Day” at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis.
C. Bitter Ruin. Our pals from Brighton who just completely stun the crowd with their Gothic romance. We’d be tailing them the next day as they were kind enough to host us in their home town. Hats off to Georgia and Ben. Whoop!
Frankly it’s a little difficult to remember blow by blow specifics of our gig. We had prepared a 55 minute set but were reminded by Melissa as we were catching our breath after, that what we thought was a full set had only played for 35 minutes. We must have ripped through that sucker like nobodies business. Out in the house chanting an encore was an audience reaching a peak level. Holy mother! We shimmied back and knocked out a couple more and before I knew it champagne was being spilled into plastic cups and down receptive gullets.
Nice to see Londoners relish and show their enthusiasm for what turned out to be not only our maiden gig but also very memorable evening.
