By Paul Loader

You know how you are drawn to watching horror films, even though you know they are going to scare you witless, well I have been hooked on reading the “Worst Gigs” stories in Bristol Rocks in much the same way.

As a gigging musician the sense of “that could be me next” haunts me as I chuckle (albeit nervously) at the antics of fellow musos.

However, it did get me thinking. We embark on this journey of blood, sweat, disappointment and tears because we love it, and we all live in hope and of ‘THAT’ gig. The one gig that lodges itself firmly in your memory, the one you can bore your grandchildren with in later life “Granddad, we REALLY don’t care that you supported McFly at the Colston Hall”

So I thought, what has been my one gig? The gig that I have been trying to get back to ever since. 

Well, the answer for me was in May 1996, when I played the Brixton Academy, to a packed house of five & half thousand people……twice!...in one day. 

The band was The Mudheads former incarnation Mudheads Monkey, we were the opening act at both gigs and the memory will live with me for ever. 

I had better explain. As most of you know I come from the Gospel background (as do many of our best singers), and being a rampant God Botherer I have had the opportunity to play at large Christian events and festivals.
 

This particular gig was being run by the Methodist Youth Association (Wesley would have turned in his grave), and they had two back to back gigs being played at the Brixton Academy with an attendance of 11,000 young and extremely lively people. 

We had been invited to audition, which was a pain as my wife’s family were having a gathering on the same day and I HAD to be there…no excuses other than death (even then I don’t think that would have been a viable reason). So in order not to lose the opportunity, but keep my spleen intact at the same time, we drafted in the bass player from a band called Gethsemane Rose and our guitarist Matt Sims took the lead vocals and off they trundled to the audition. Well, I don’t know what they did right, but we got the gig, and we were to open the whole event….as I said, twice.
 

You can imagine the bands excitement as we trundled up to the Academy in our Charcoal grey Mercedes tour bus (I kid you not, it had curtains a television and everything), and our entourage that was to take care of selling the merchandise…for today only, we were playing with the big boys. 

We had the best back line equipment, so all four bands were to use ours (you can imagine how that tickled our egos) and as we wheeled it out onto the stage we took a sharp intake of breath. We were going to be playing through the biggest PA we had ever seen. The fold back alone was bigger than anything I had been plugged into, and to the left of the stage was a massive video wall….we had arrived.
 

There were four of us in the band in those days, CJ and I, Matt as I have mentioned, and Fi Hunt a women both beautiful in nature and looks, who was a London School of Music trained flute player (goodness only knows what she was doing playing with us three bozo’s, but it must had seemed like a good idea to her at the time), and we had our own dressing room, name on the door and everything.

We were like kids in a candy store, especially as our dressing room overlooked the side door where a large chunk of the crowd filtered into the building. We entertained ourselves by chucking Monkey Nuts at them as they walked underneath us. Hopefully that wouldn’t come back to bite us later..

In a stab at professionalism, Fi had a go at Matt and I with some basic make up, in order to reduce glow from the lights you understand. Being a drummer, CJ threatened to throw himself out of the window if she came anywhere near him with her powder puff. 

And then we were on! 

If you have ever had the experience of over five thousand people going absolutely wild as you take to the stage, then you will have some idea as to the adrenalin rush we experienced at the moment.

They were really into it, moshing yelling, and even waving those dayglo sticks in unison as we played our one and only slow song very rock & roll.. 

CJ yelled out that we do an impromptu song change half way through the set and we plunged headlong into ‘Two Princes’ by The Spin Doctors. The crowd went absolutely, totally and utterly mental.  

I had the biggest stage I ever had at my disposal and I made full use of it! I love guitar transmitters.  

My only complaint was that it was way too short. We only had about 20 minutes or so, but man, what a 20 minutes they were. 

And then we got to do it all over again! Wow.

Mind you, one of us will have a completely different memory of the gig burnt into their psyche. Poor old Matt, right at the beginning of the first gig, ran full tilt onto the stage, straight into the drum riser, and cracked his shin. He spent the whole day in blind agony. Bless im! 

The icing on the cake was selling nearly one and half grand of merchandise. We were even selling signed pictures of the band. We were stars!!! 

However, just for balance, and bringing us down to earth with a tremendous bump we played the very next day in Chippenham, and somebody had mucked up the advertising and we performed to about nine 10 year olds.

We played at least one more huge festival, main stage after that in the July, but that was that. 

Our first gig after we reformed as The Mudheads was wedged in a corner in the 3 Sugar Loaves at the bottom of Christmas Steps. 

As the old adage goes, be careful how you treat people on the way up, because you never know who you will meet on the way back down.