Saturday December 4

Maja:

‘Good morning.’ We say as our new roommate starts to wake up. His name is Didier and he soon proves to be the most chill person and perfect roommate and actually a really good friend. He shows a lot of interest in us, and we talk about our music and sing a little bit for him as he gets more and more dragged into the story. When we tell him about our gig tonight, he actually says that he’ll be there. Which is amazing. That will make him the first person ever to have actively turned up to one of our gigs. Thank you very much. 

Mark:

A lot of my nervous energy before we arrived here was tied up in thinking if this thing was even possible. Could we just turn up in a city, walk round and hustle venues that didn’t actually have bands regularly, or even at all? Well, the answer now is very much yes. Two gigs booked, one played and one to come tonight. Wow. And against all the stress and general busy times in getting here in the first place. I think we settle into the rest of the relieved, with a lot of pressure taken off. And with a hell of a lot done too to be fair. So today is definitely time to chill and that’s what we do. Just take it easy and get out for tonight’s gig when we’re ready.

We do that, but also decide to try to get some hustling done on the way. It’s fair to say that doesn’t go very well and is a little frustrating. But really, however early it may be, it is still Saturday night and bar managers aren’t around to talk to so we pull out of this idea and agree that Saturday is not a day for gig hustling. 

Instead we go get a pizza and then make it down to tonight’s venue, Zumt Und Zunder. All is quiet when we arrive but we’re assured it will get busy. Which is quite cool actually as it means we’re able to set up and soundcheck in private. This can often be a mildly delicate process, especially in a new venue as you set your sound levels and the management says you’re too loud and should turn down. But that’s fine. Turn down we do, to everyone’s satisfaction and declare ourselves ready. This place is split into three rooms with open entryways between them. We’re in the corner of the middle part with a large table in front of us, two or three other smaller tables, then the games room in the room ahead of us and to our left the main bar area. 

Just as we finish soundcheck, Didier, our room mate from the hostel, turns up. Cool. He is now the first person to ever come out and go to a venue deliberately just to see us. He settles down with a friend and we join them for a while before showtime, sitting at a table a few metres from the front of our area.

By the time we start, the large table has been taken up by one big group and as soon as we’re into the first song, it’s clear we’re too loud for them as they instantly stop talking and begin to play mime at each other. We instantly clock this and turn down. Then they start talking again and I feel a bit relieved at that. It would have been an absolute disaster if they’d left and we’d been seen to cost the bar such a big table. Not long after this, we’re asked to turn down again. Oh dear. It is starting to look like we’re a bit too up and energetic for this place. Did they really just want background music? We have a few more gentle songs in our setlist so we start to pull them out. But through all this, we really do feel a few things start to happen, not least with Insanity, our latest song. For a start, there’s a guy in the games room playing fussball who’s totally forgotten the idea of playing and is transfixed with us. We see that when his friends try to exhort him to play, not only does he refuse, but he gestures towards us and reverses the exhortation to get his friends to leave the game themselves and join him. And off to our left through the bar area, right over at the far end by the main window, a table of three people has totally stopped talking with one of them having turned her back on her friends to face us. They certainly haven’t stopped because we’re too loud because they’re far too far away for that to make a difference.

So on we go with the main table in front chatting away, but even a few of them paying special attention, and with one or two people dotted about the place really here with us. And our little table of two friends. All around, the rest of the place is just carrying on, but we’re just doing our thing. Applause throughout is a touch erratic and there are no huge raptures, but it seems people are just going about their Saturday night. A few seconds after we finish you would think we’d never been there, and the manager is more concerned with us making the area useable again rather than offering any thoughts. OK. We take our gear down and go and join Didier and his friend. Once we’re set up with a few drinks – on the house so cool – I go and speak to the manager who last night was so enthusiastic about us playing tonight. She’s lukewarm on the idea of us coming again and cites toughening Covid restrictions as a reason. Whatever. She’s being perfectly nice but there’s no comment at all on what we’ve just done, merely thoughts that it might not work in the current environment. We conclude she just wanted us to be background music in the corner, out of the way. And we have absolutely no intention of doing that. We part as friends but even without her thoughts, or non-thoughts, we’ve decided this is not going to be a venue for us. But we’re also still learning our equipment, still really getting more familiar with our material and, this is still only our third ever gig, bizarre as that might seem. So, for a learning experience, it’s been great and it’s much better to do your learning in private, such as what works and what doesn’t, what hits and what doesn’t, and really how to position your sound. It’s all been happening here, we were given the opportunity and for that we’re grateful. Once we’re ready to leave, everyone says their polite goodbyes and we head back home. Yes, wherever we happen to be staying, we’re going to be referring to that as going home.

Maja:

It just keeps on getting tougher and tougher. We started off with a cover band venue in Ireland that was incredibly anti any kind of original music, but they still turned out to love us. After that it was a heavy metal bar, and they were mighty impressed with our gutsiness and attitude but we couldn’t quite be big or loud enough. And now we’ve played an artsy venue where we just couldn’t be small or quiet enough. That feels the hardest one to me. Before this we’ve been expected to be more and more and actually take a venue by surprise. To be ourselves and be big and have a lot to offer. But tonight we were expected to tone down. That’s just not us. It wasn’t a pleasant experience to get that kind of feedback, or non-feedback. It’s like if Nirvana or Red Hot Chili Peppers played there, they would be told the same. Well, I got new gigging experience which is invaluable, but other than that, let’s move on strongly as always. Playing as if to Wembley stadium at every venue we go to.