Prescient?

So we played two gigs at the weekend: on Friday we opened at Fury Murry's and on Sunday at the Universal.

Friday was the 7^th anniversary of the 'Fynn's first ever gig, and although we weren't playing in the same place as we had done back in 2000, Coba Fynn had a long and illustrious history of rocking Fury's before I joined and I was intrigued to see what all the fuss was about. Ash and I jumped in the Trøll, dribbled through the glutinous Edinburgh traffic* and then hared along the M8 in time for the "strict" 6-6.30 setup window.

Just to give a bit of context, Fury's lurks on a tributary of Glasgow's no-way traffic system, with a strip bar and the carbuncular St. Enoch's Centre for its nearest points of reference. It shares genes more with a fallout shelter than a club and to say it has sound quality is something of an oxymoron. We rose to the occasion and churned out a mediocre set. It really did blow: the sound on stage somehow went south between the soundcheck and our set, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't the presence of the crowd (thank you both for coming) altering the acoustics. So, unable to hear much of anything, we played shoddily through an abbreviated set and got the hell off the stage.

That is the last time I make a Titanic crack about a gig.

Fast forward to Sunday though, and everything that went wrong with Friday night was miraculously reversed. A practice beforehand tightened up the playing and sorted out three new songs; a venue small enough for un-mic'd amps gave us a great sound and an appreciative audience made all the difference. The Average Folk Band, headlining after us, were stonkingly good and provided an excellent soundtrack for the rest of the night. Hurray for the Universal! I sincerely hope we get to play there again, and I think Fury's has been edged out of the 'Fynn pantheon...

The gigs were bookended with a pleasant day in the sun with Ash: we lounged around beer gardens (drinking coffee, oddly enough, but then cafés with outdoor tables are few and far between round these parts) and ambled along the north sides of the New Town streets to keep the sun on our pasty faces. It feels like summer, or something like it, has finally arrived and everything looks rosy from here!

* I don't whether it's a hardening of the mental arteries as I get older, the fact that had I've more occasion of late to use the car than usual or whether the traffic really is worse, but my God! I can't drive within the Edinburgh city limits between 8.30 and 6pm without being overtaken by A) insensible rage and B) chancing bastards in the bus lane.