28/01/05, Part II.

Iain and Andy from Proxy turned up to help us soundcheck in the afternoon and by 8 pm, we'd set up in a classic rhythm section vs. guitars formation. We played a final test song about 8.45 to the few hardcore Monkey enthusiasts who'd turned up early, and everything seemed to be going well.

Until I called Josh to ask when he was going to arrive with his CD deck and music for the pre- and post-band DJing.

"Hey, Josh. How're you doing?"
"Not good, really. The washing machine has been leaking water all over the kitchen floor and the plumber's not coming until tomorrow morning."
"Ah."

Still, he arrived in time, got set up and was laying down some suitably indie tunes for the early arrivals.

Ruth, having never hosted a band upstairs at the bar, was getting a little twitchy about the noise. Throughout the afternoon, we'd been playing odds and ends to get the levels set properly. She came upstairs at one point and told us that Doug's bass drumming was causing the downstairs DJ to mess up his mixing. "A small victory for live music!" we crowed, and then did as we were told and stopped pratting about.

Come 9 pm, we moved the DJ kit out of the way and got ready. Doug counted in Vertigo and away we went. I have to admit that the first few songs were a bit of a blur: I was standing stock still, concentrating entirely on playing and didn't really come out of my shell until a banana skin (thrown by Jez, of course) slapped onto the floor in front of me. This elicited a smile and I relaxed a bit for the rest of the set.

Turns out we can play pretty well. The sound quality was the equal of anything we've managed before, thanks to the afternoon of tweaking and re-tweaking. The sheer number of cameras flashing right, left and centre lent everything a surreal air (and, dare I say it, a slightly professional one?) and basically, it was fucking great!

Once we'd finished All I Want To Do Is Rock - one of the first songs that TM ever tried - we decided to damn the torpedoes and played Happy Twenty Thirty-Fourth Birthday, our notional encore, straight off the bat. And it sounded good, and people danced. Franz Ferdinand, take note.

Finally, when we hurtled through Vertigo again as a true encore ("Come on! You've got five minutes left!"), some of the audience sang along. Utter genius.

So, huge thanks to all of the guys that came along; you made it extraordinarily worthwhile and we were staggered that so many of you made it to our first gig. Josh, Iain, Andy and Ruth were all pivotal in organising the evening as a whole, so special thanks go to them for helping the Monkey out.

Roll on the next show! (Which, incidentally, might be a tsunami benefit gig at the Caley Brewery. Just so you know :)

Monkey gig trivia:

1. Dave did, in fact, sing:
   

   
   "I wanna stick my penis
   Right into your hole
   (Sorry guys)"
   

   
   in Creep. Just like he'd promised he'd do.
   
2. An itinerant ned twice offered to sing for us: "That wiz rilly great can I get a go at singing likes? Ah'm in a band n we do Oasis songs."
   

Have you got any more?