Sinking Feeling

So it's like this......we turn up for this gig yesterday at the Hope & Anchor....and we're on last...and it's almost 11pm by the time we're on stage... and it's about ten past 11 by the time Dove has finished introducing us and shut the fuck up....and wadya know we get half way through our big Christmas song opening number and I forget the words.

Have you ever done that?...It's ugly isn't it? Kind of reminds me of when you're a kid at school and you turn up for your first lesson and the teacher says "All right - test!"...and you realise you forgot about it and haven't prepared. You get about half way through a verse and then it gradually dawns on you that you haven't the faintest idea what comes next.

Sometimes you can wing it but last night....nah.

I suppose I've aggrevated the situation for myself by writing such wordy songs. Oyoyoyoyoy.

It seems to happen pretty regularly as I get older...I think we should make a feature of it and have a 50p sweepstake round the audience on which song I'll fuck up on.

Still things perked up a bit after that. We even had about 10-15 people left in the room (thanks for hanging around guys!)

I thought the first couple of bands were blinding I have to say. The Stabilisers were in the mould of The Presidents of the United States (but good). Very charismatic lead singer, who appeared to know all his words - hard to tell though cause you couldn't hear any of them. And that Istvanski was giving it some.

The Outcasts weren't exactly charismatic (yeah that's definitely not the word), but it turned proper edgy complete with slamming in the pit by pissed bloke, red-wine throwing incident by other pissed bloke and twatting of wrong pissed bloke by huge angry bass player bloke incident. Last time I saw them they had the graveyard slot the Dublin Castle and it lacked a certain ooomph - but with a roomful of people with enough beer in them it worked a treat. Took me back to those trips up to punk gigs in the West End when I was a teenager in the 1970's - and you were never quite sure if you were going to get home without getting your head kicked in......and that was a bit exciting...remember?

Had a bit of fun trying to get home clutching my coffin-shaped Rock-til-you-Drop best album award (we were the only people who bothered voting then...well most of us anyway). They'd closed the entrance to Hollway tube because the lifts weren't working and there was no way to get to another station before the last train. Fortunately was rescued by Birdy, the faithful guitarist, otherwise I's still be there.

So what about this, Toby? Why don't we start these things a bit earlier?...Then we'd all be home in time for a nice cup of tea and a quickie before bedtime.

But cheers as ever for putting the whole thing together ! Great fun!

And as for Punks not Dad..........WIMPS!!!!