Gig #1 is back in December 1990 and it's at the Marquee in London. Unfortunately it's not the original Marquee in Wardour Street as that had closed a few years earlier, but it was the 2nd incarnation on Charing Cross Road. It had been open for a while though, and had managed somehow to pick up at least a bit of the "vibe" that the old place had, including the graffiti covered dressing rooms, beer stained Green Room for the pre and post gig VIP type behaviour and the all important "Marquee" backdrop that not even the most famous bands in the world ever covered up with their own.
 

We took to the stage like we owned the place, and basically killed the enthusiastic crowd with our own brand of slightly techno-metal. Mike Exley from Metal Forces reviewed our slot:

"Mirror Mirror had a point to prove as the first band of the night, and made the most of their early spot by taking the running. Blasting out a set of subtle ballads and rocking anthems with superb keyboard runs and a strong Queensryche-like rhythm section., the band clearly aren't thrash but their points were firmly nailed to the mast with subtle tones like "Eternal Lady" where Sy's charismatic vocal worked well with a stronger drum sound and a fatter crunchier guitar section than the band had been able to call on when I last saw them. The band are a lot more professional now too, no doubt due to extensive dates on the road, but that all pays dividends along the way especially when the band really rocks out on "Number Five" it does so with a degree of charisma well above it's years. It was not their first time in London, but I'm sure it was their best".
 

I think Mike needs to work on his punctuation, but he clearly liked us!!!

Gig #2 is in April 1994 and is a bit closer to home - the Colston Hall in good old Bristol. I was still a bass player, but this time I'm in a commercial hard rock combo called Devious. Again it was a support slot - how many Bristol based muso's can actually lay claim to having headlined the Colston?? Not many would be my guess….. We'd managed to secure the opening slot for Magnum on their Rock Art tour, and having played a couple of days earlier at their Cheltenham Town Hall gig, the buzz generated by playing at my home town big theatre venue was awesome. I'd managed to get some pre-gig press in the Evening Post, and we'd also ran a competition for some after show passes, tickets and t-shirts etc via the regular rock night at the Bierkeller - DJ/Entertainments Manager Andy Fox was actually responsible for getting us the gig in the first place, after Magnum's management contacted him for some local band contact info.

Robin Askew reviewed us for Venue:
"As befitted the first local rock band to tread those creaky old Colston Hall boards since Onslaught's stage diving audience demolished several rows of seats in aid of the Bristol Community Festival all those years ago, Devious turned in their best performance to date, despite a mix that sacrificed clarity for volume, especially in the guitar department. Back in Voodoo days, vocalist Mike Blakemore's high pitched squawking often sent punters fleeing for the exits. Now he's found a slightly lower register that actually suits his voice, the result being a vast all-round improvement in a band that's finally beginning to function comfortably as a unit. A none-too-inspiring plod on CD, the guitar driven funk of "Closer Down Easy" miraculously bursts into life on stage, blossoming into a refreshingly loose jam to counterpoint the precision of such a well regimented number as - cough! - "More Than A Man". But what's this? It seems poor ol' Mike's got a severe case of my-baby-done-gone-left-me blues that he proceeds to share with the assembled throng in the form of "Thinking Of You", which sounds like every Guns n' Roses song you've ever heard rolled into one. Accompanied by Paul Godbert on acoustic guitar it's a towering vocal performance, pitched somewhere in the Paul Rogers/Danny Bowes territory, and the lovelorn crooner seems genuinely lost in the lyrics. The driving "Deliverance", their best and most simple song to date, closed a set that couldn't be faulted for its pacing and delivery. They certainly went down well with the extraordinarily mixed Magnum audience, which appears to span three generations from toddlers to pensioners".

Robin obviously has a better grasp of punctuation than Mike, and he liked us too!!

The aftershow party thing fell a bit flat in the end, as Magnum were more into a cheese salad sandwich and a cup of tea than naked women, hard drugs and Jack Daniels. We made our own little party (just the Jack Daniels though…….) in a quiet corner and revelled in the adrenaline rush that lasted for about a week.

These two gigs were definitely the highlight of my attempt at a musical career, and while there were individual performances that were better, or odd happenings that also stick in the mind despite the passing of time, nothing else comes close to shading a gig at the legendary Marquee and the biggest (for now anyway…….) indoor venue in Bristol.

Moose.