It was a gig and it is one that we played.

I’ve decided to write this while all the strange colours and shapes from last night are still somewhat vivid in my memory. Good, no? I’ve got my second coffee of the day on the go after just getting through my front door, so let’s start with the joys of gigging.

Those who came to our St. Pancras Old Church gig are very beautiful people. Thank you so much for your support. Nice venue, no? Interesting, fun...a little strange. I thoroughly enjoyed shaking all the religious artifacts with incredible bass power during soundcheck. And in the gig. Big shout outs to Cate Ferris (‘support’ act. She ‘supported’ us with her songs. ‘Suppooooooort.’), Louis D’aboville who sorted out that whole light thing we had going on, and to our fabulous string quartet who, despite playing instruments that aren’t made of buttons that go BBRRRRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVV, still manage to make music. Thanks to Communion, too, for putting the whole thing on. [If I weren't so knackered I'd put links on all those names, but I'm knackered (see earlier in sentence) and some of this bit is an edit, so I'm essentially writing from beyond this entry's grave. Woooooo-oooo.)

I’d like to say that my highlight was when the church bells from across the way started ringing during the quietest and most tender moment of the gig, but that would be my favourite moment in a kind of twisted way which, after having such a good time, I’m not feeling. My actual favourite moment was the end of Posture. We just smashed it and then ended up getting a tidal wave of reaction which, when you’re standing up there, makes everything go away and you can just drown in the flood of sound. It’s very difficult to describe how it hits you, if you haven’t experienced it. It’s like it goes straight through you and your mind kind of hooks onto it as it passes through and you suddenly find yourself living a mile or two behind your own skull. Awesome.

Look at that – a little sincerity, albeit dressed up as something hideous and garish so that I might protect myself from my own feelings. Makes you feel uncomfortable, doesn’t it? Me, too. Let’s sit in this puddle we’ve made for ourselves for just a moment. Tum-tee-tooo.

So, one of the members of the string quartet, who I won’t mention by name because it feels odd to (and I don’t know why), suggested we head back to hers after the show for a little chill and a drinky-poos. There’s no other way to end such a fun night, really, so after a couple of trips to a couple of Greenwich’s finest twenty-four hour supermarkets we found ourselves fully boozed and parked up and inside the building. Inside a lift. The lift didn’t work, for a while, so we were then seven, closeted up close like those fish that come in those overly used similes. It was a couple of minutes after the fear hit that the door finally opened, us having gone nowhere and perfectly happy to consign the last few brushed-chrome moments to the funny bin.

Ah, stairs. Front door. ‘Let me just snap my front door key in half, and we’ll be in.’ she must have said at some point, someone failing to suggest that it might be better to unlock the door, instead. Do you have a spare? No. ‘Hello, flatmate? Where are you? I’ve snapped my key and locked myself out! Oh, you’re in town? Can you...’

No, no, no. No help coming. Rightly so. Not a problem. She was mortified. We, of course, found it funny. Jeb only wished we’d been stuck in the lift for longer so that this might have punctuated the evening even more effectively. She ran to get the ‘super’, which I can only assume means Superman because I believe Superman helps human animals who need the superior help. Hence: Sup ‘erma’ n.

We didn’t go with her, because no-one offered to. Ho-hum. We sat on the floor of the very well appoitment block and opened our beers, like everyone who crosses that line between the privileged and the redundant should. We laughed. We joked. We needed a wee, we tried to pick the lock, and we contemplated lowering Seryn down from the roof with my hair.

She came back, still horrified, no super.

Don’t worry – we’ve got a van, outside.

So we sat in the van, in the wind and the rain, and we figured out what to do next. I mean, drinking and laughing were the first two things, but then we had to figure out how to get a set of keys back from the centre of London at 2am.

Taxi.

Taxi booked.

More laughing. More drinking. More cold, wind, and rain.

Forty minutes passes.

‘Yes, Hi, we ordered a taxi earlier, just wondering if...OK it’s still on its way to him...’

Stupid laughs. Punning on the names of composers, the jokes far too scatalogical for a blog so sophisticated as this little brown bum. Let's just say that 'Rimsky-Korsakov' made an appearance. Not literally, obviously.

‘Hi, we ordered a taxi about an hour ago...’

They’re almost there, they say. Who’s got the baccy?

‘Yeah, ahem, we ordered a taxi about two hours ago and we still haven’t...’

Gluggety gluggety glue. Trewin found some extra-strong tape in the van, made a crown, and we started sticking things to his head.

The wind and rain were still battering the van, and here we were in this car park, listening to an awesome pirate radio station playing some incredible jazz and house. I don’t usually like the radio, but this I could get down with.

Glug glug.

‘Yeah, hi, it’s been three hours now and...’

Ahem.

‘What about [insert immediate despatch courier name here]? They’ll probably do it and it’ll probably be cheaper.’

Very good idea.

‘Yes, that’ll be twenty minutes.’

Twenty minutes later, it showed up. Awesome, truly awesome. We’re talking half-four in the morning, at this point. We were to subsequently learn that a taxi showed up at the location about half an hour later, with the taxi driver telling the person from whom the key had already been collected to ‘go freng yourself’, or somesuch. Ah, well.

So it goes.

Indoooooors!

INNDDDDOOOOOOOOORS!

Lovely flat, big sofas, massive double bass in the corner, laptop, various refreshments, post-gig-glow still in attendance plus the surreal nature of our time in the van...

We ended up laughing, laughing a lot, long into the night and watching the sun rise over the London skyline listening to Ella Fitzgerald.

It was difficult to know exactly when, as the night segued so gloriously into the day that I didn’t feel a click of instinct or routine, but soon enough the adults knew it was time for bed.

‘We don’t have any curtains in the house, so...good luck.’

Thanks.

So that was last night. I now have to stay indoors for the next five years to pay off the loan I had to take out to buy breakfast at a Costa coffee on the A23, so you won’t hear of any shenanegins like this for a long time.

All of us are having a well deserved rest. That was a big gig.

Thanks again for all your support, our dearest people.

Have fun, and let the caffeine start coursing its way through your system this Saturday night, it’ll help you write nonsense.

Tim