After some difficulty persuading people that we actually had bought tickets in advance to be picked up on the door (Which the door people seemed very very suspicious of the possibility of) we got in, and enjoyed some bands.
Upstairs at the Garage is a very small venue indeed, and it quite quickly became moderately cosy.
Zwartenblauw were the first lot up. Unfortunately we missed the start of the set, but what we caught was enjoyable, they were good on stage, and the lead singer had sticky stuff wrapped around her. If I get the chance to go and see them again I think that I will jump at it.
By this stage a lot of people that I knew were about, so I had some good conversations, with people that I had not seen in a while, some in absolutely ages.
Next up were Tarentella Serpentine, whose name was familiar but I had no idea what they would be like. The front guy was spotted, being somewhat extravagantly dressed, in a very red dress and top, and the sticky thing theme was continued with fragile tape beign visible around his chest. Unfortunately the rest of the band were not so inspiring, especially not the bloke who stood on the stage and looked fat and bored with a beer in one hand and occasionally twiddled a know with the other. I think that the lead guy was giving it a lot, but his stage presence didn't make up for the fat and pointless guy and also the fact that the music wasn't, in my opinion, that great.
During this band I also noticed that the volume was up really quite overly high for the size of the venue. (Checks ears to see if they have fallen off)
After an ear recovery break, D.U.S.T. sproinged onto the stage, and I sproinged around in front of the stage. I've seen them several times before, and as always there was a lot of energy, a lot of good music and a fantastic feeling between the audience and the band. At least there seemed to be; I was somewhat unaware of what might be going on behind me. Everyone beside and immdeiately around me was deeply beset by enjoyment though.
By the end of the set I was bouncing in time with the others in the front row, and completely oblivious to time passing. All of a sudden there was no more DUST on the stage, and I stood there breathless, endorphins streaming through my veins and lifting me somewhere above all the worry that I had been feeling about things like work, making me fly.
You may wonder how the final band of the evening, Chaos Engine, would be able to top that.
Whilst they were great, for me DUST was the highlight of the evening. They played
some old stuff, adn some new stuff from the upcoming album. That album was
supposed to be released at the gig, but they got somewhat carried away in the
recording of it and had too many things turned up too loud, so some changes are
having to be made (Like volume knobs going to the left
After a bit of recovery time we decided that we would go on to Teneabrae for the rest of the evening. I suppose that if I had have been sensible and organised and useful, I'd have sorted out with Leanne going to TG and gone appropriately dressed, but that thought only occured to me half way there. It has been too long since I have seen Leanne properly, we really do need to catch up at some point soon. Catt was feeling quite tired and we decided to at least go for a bit to Gossips, and see how we felt. I guess that if we had been down in Brixton at TG we would have been much less likely to have gone with the possibility of leaving after an hour.
Tenebrae was fun, though it was odd to walk into a club and think to yourself that the music was suprisingly quiet. I met some new people. Of note was a Scottish bloke who was very tall and broke computers for a living, and used to be a physicist, and a German marathon runner called Mark. Hopefully I'll bump into them again somewhere.
Return to the music page