Been thinking about gigs a bit recently (for obvious reasons), and after Bandcamp announced they're doing a paid streaming thing coming soon - which I think is a great idea - I thought back over the past 15 years or so of satan to really pick out some gig memories. Then, I thought who the fuck wants to hear those? So I drifted into those times the band canned gigs off.
Now, since 2005(ish), worriedaboutsatan has been a side-project, a one man band, a college project, a full band, a touring monster, a support slot mainstay, a fully fledged festival headliner (citation needed) and headline act. Over the years, the band prided itself on the live side of things - we've done so many (and I mean SO FUCKING MANY) crap gigs over the years, it's a wonder the band still exists. Trips to Nottingham on empty Sunday evenings for the total of £9 (which we even had to haggle upwards off the promoter), Playing a 200 cap venue in Oxford to literally 3 people, a disused missile silo with no roof in East Germany - y'know, that kinda thing. But we never really canned off a gig. Hell, there was once when I was in hospital having to wait for emergency surgery, but the band still fulfilled a gig booking (albeit without me).
However, there were times when even we'd had enough. I thought about those the other day, and as there were surprisingly few examples (which makes us the good guys, right?) they were easy to remember.
There was the festival in Kent back in 2007, when we'd just started touring and recording stuff. We'd play anywhere at that point, but a sort-of hippy festival in the middle of Kent over a weekend, with camping the only accomodation open to us, with zero fee, was a bit much. I remember reluctantly picking up a tent I'd had in my parents' shed for years, with the intention of sleeping in it that weekend. I took it back to my house, and in front of several people all calling us nuts for agreeing to do this stupid gig, I realised the bag didn't have any tentpoles. The decision was made there and then that we'd made a huge error, and we'd have to pull out. Which we did. Apologies to all Kent based electronica fans. Bit keen, weren't we? There's a difference between gigging around your local town for a surprise tenner in fee, and driving hundreds of miles to play for 30 minutes in a field in Kent. KENT!
There was another cracker I remembered too - Sheffield. We were booked to do a strange electronica festival (think it was more an alldayer) above a pub on a rainy winter Friday night. We got there, cold, tired (we'd come straight from work) and slightly annoyed that our stage time was close to 11pm. As we arrived, we went upsairs with a bit of gear from the car, to be confronted by two things: a massively empty room (naturally), and the promoter asking us if we'd switch stagetimes with another band, who, and I'm not kidding here, wanted to go hiking the next day. What was the stagetime I hear you ask? 2am. Yes, they wanted us to wait around until 2am (think it was about 9pm at this point) to play, as another band wanted to go on early so they could be up for a walk. To be honest, I think they saw how bad the night was going, and just wanted to get out of there. This was another one for zero money, so completely out of character for worriedaboutsatan, we sort of laughed, said no thanks, and just walked off. Drove home, ordered pizza and watched Terminator 2 before going to bed at a reasonable hour.
Halcyon days!