30 Nights of Bushweek - Episode 1

I feel inferior to The Baaron in many ways, not least in the fields of songwriting and self defence. But what really plays on my inner-most fears is the size of our pedal boards.

  

The Baaron. Modest in size, but full of home-made gizmatronics and battle-hardened stalwarts.

 

Me. Small, and featuring not one but three Behringer pedals, the cheapest, nastiest effects on the planet. And one of them isn't even mine.

Christ, this is heading in the wrong direction. Better just stick to the facts.

The feelings of power and musical authority that we bathed in during our time at Abbey Road began to evaporate very quickly when we got down to the brass tacks of actually playing music again. Lugging gear up stairs is a great way to combat delusions of "celebrity" and "arrival". By the time we were set up on stage at the Luminaire our mortality had reasserted itself. Back to the whipped-dog, penny-pinching reality of a small-venue tour.

The Baaron handled the landing of his ego with much more grace than me, because when the chips are down I am thrice the wanker he will ever be.

But the Baaron has other talents, hair-trigger violent rage being cheif among them. Frustrated by an intermitant buzz in his monitor wedge, he suddenly lifted his right leg, his knee almost touching his chin, and brought his boot-heel down with full force.

The speaker-grill caved in like wet cardboard, but miraculously pulled up just short of the cone, so no major damage was done. Evil Andy Inglis (pronounced Ingles) let out a blood-curdling shreik and had to be restrained by his bar-staff from beating The Baaron bloody with his silver tipped cane.

But you know what? We never heard that buzz again. Full marks, Von Nibbles.

 

The Baaron and The Box. A fairytale constantly in the making.

 

Evil Andy explains the proper procedure for resolving technical issues to a visably non-plussed Baaron.

But what would a gig-night be without this kind of barely avoided blood-letting? Lame, my freinds, lame. I want no part of that kind of neutered experience, and neither do my colleagues. 

Anyway, given that this was the first night of the tour, and given the threadbare rehearsal shedule that preceeded it, we managed to not-suck pretty convincingly.

One day I'll be able to fret my high E without looking.

Baaron Von Nibbles gets intense.

But tonight belonged to headline act "The Chap", who prog-popped the living bejeesus out of the healthy crowd, who responded by going just about as bazonkers as any London crowd could ever be expected to go. We managed to sell a t-shirt to a drunk girl, though. Top notch.

Hanging at the merch stand. The Baaron shows his contempt for social norms while his lawyer fiance tries to play "Flight of the bumble-bee" into my eye, on a beer bottle.

In summary...

PRO

- The Luminaire is awesome

- Decent crowd

- Minimal violence

- One guy told me we were the loudest thing he'd heard all week.

CON

- The Chap stomped us.

- Aaron lost his favorite jacket

- A guy from the opening act was sent to hospital in an ambulance for mysterious, possibly drug/crime related reasons

Fair enough. Next episode we will get all Dutch on your ass, as we drive to Eindhoven to support 65 Days Of Static and pick up some Delft pottery.

*BUSHWEEK - Australian colloquialism. An unreasonable demand or behavior.

"Get ya fuckin feet off the fuckin couch, Nathan. Whadaya think this is, ya cunt, bushweek?"