Lost in Eden

Hello.

I fully intend to try and fill in this little blog thing after every performed Moonlet & The Love-Monks gig... partly to entertain and inform you, partly so I can look back fondly sometime in the future and say 'yeah, I remember that!' ...sooo... now you know why you're here... let's get on with the first entry.

The date's November 18th and we're due to play the Eden Project Cafe in St. Austell tonight with support from Relentless. So after a quick practice we get on up there. Taking three cars mean that Harry (bass) and I take the lead and Harry quickly decides that no matter what happens... we need to eat. Even if it means running right over Dan's (guitar) head to do so. We make a sneaky stop at McDonald's behind his back.

We queue up in a... a suspiciously regimented queueing system. There appears to be more staff on hand to herd the cattle into neat lines than there are on hand to serve them. It's all a little overwhelming and it's hard not to appear flustered when I finally get jostled to the front of the line. Not to worry though! I deliver my order with clarity and some degree of charm... it's a balance that's hard to get quite right when you're sort of person who is constantly afraid of stuttering, stammering, being indecisive, getting the order wrong a couple of times and generally holding everyone up.

Seriously, everytime I'm forced to order food, I have that same fear! It's mighty!

So I'm standing there awash in a glow of self satisfaction when it unfortunately occurs that my fears aren't unbounded. It turns out my card is absolutely knackered and an embarassing scene unfolds involving numerous McDonalds workers paying me an unnecessary amount of attention, culminating in one of the staff telling me that I would, in fact, be 'going hungry' that evening. Her words, not mine. Luckily Zeno (drums) comes to my aid and the situation is resolved. I wish I would say that was my lowest moment of the night.

It... it was not.

Fed and watered, we drive off to the loading bay in order to stuff some surprisingly willful steel cages full of equipment. The first two trips in the elevator with the stuff go fine enough. It's a relatively simple system. Carry the equipment up the wall and into the cage. Take the cage to the lift. Lift up to sixth. Take the cage down the massive corridor. Take the firedoor out into the open and into the cafe. Empty the cages of equipment. Take the cages back through the fire door, down the massive corridor, into the lift, down to the loading bay, jump down the wall and repeat the process.

So when we complete the second transaction, things go seriously awry... see, the support band, Relentless have turned up with their equipment and it turns out that with our final load and their cage full of equipment, not everyone is going to fit into the lift. Luckily for everyone, Roger and I had previously taken the stairs for a laugh, so I know a quick, alternative route to get to floor six. So with this in mind, I offer to take relentless and their equipments... as well as Harry's bass guitar... up the stairs myself.

Mistake.

It's worth mentioning at this point that Relentless consist of kids ranging from about 7 or 8 to 12. And their numbers are many. In short, not the sort of group you want to get lost in a very large building.

Which is precisely what I do.

Unable to find the stairs previously so easy to locate, I stumble across another lift and I assume that if I take it to floor six, we'll go up and we'll eventually come across the others. We take the lift up and when we get to six, as done so many times before, the doors open to a corridor much like the last. Only the door we'd usually take leads to a dead end. So we decide to go back to the lift and try again.

Trouble is, the door leading back to the lift has locked itself... so we're essentially trapped in the stairwell. At this point some of the younger group members get a little edgy - understandably so - whilst other members take inspiration from this adventure and decide they'll be the ones to lead the charge. This is incredibly bad news for me... someone who is unable to keep a group of like minded people organized at the best of times... and I find myself starting to sweat. And when was it exactly that this bass guitar started getting so damned heavy!?

Back down to four... darkness. Up to 8 and 10. Nothing. Down to two... locked door. Younglings start to weep. I'm starting to wonder if joining them would be such a bad idea. Down to floor 1... boom! Freedom! We circle back around and find ourselves in the loading bay again, exactly where we'd started. There we find Relentless's manager who too is lost. My mind once again returns to thoughts of weeping... although this time in relief.

We get the lift we should have taken in the first place, now vacant enough to contain everyone and go up. The door opens and there stands a sight I've never been happier to see. Roger (guitar) and another Relentless crew member. We all pile into the cafe and I look for a pile of coats to collapse under.

Eventually everyone settles in and I scan the room to see what sort of crowd we're gonna have. I'm startled to see that some of my favourite regulars have traipsed all the way up to St. Austell to see us. Favourite even if I'm yet to have a proper conversation with some of them but that's hardly the point. This, for some reason, cheers me up a little - for no discernable reason - and the spring is back in my step. I get back into gig mode and start getting excited and giggly and stupid. And probably very annoying. Roger has to deal with it. Screw it, he'll cope.

Relentless play and I have to say I'm just a little bit surprised at their prowess. That's not to sound patronising or anything, but for their age they're really talented. They played some cover songs better than I played them in The Boogaloo Dudes... an old cover band from years gone by. The crowd seem into them... it bodes well for our eventual taking to the stage. I drink a couple of beers and I start to feel both comfy and confident. And a little sleepy.

The time comes to play and once more I scan the faces in the room.

Be cool, O'Neill. Be cool. It's a mantra that always looks good on paper. Within five minutes of playing, however, it all goes out the window along with any real vocal prowess I may have displayed in practise merely hours earlier. From then on the whole night becomes a series of gambles... ranging from whether my awkward and stilted banter has an effect, to whether I'll manage to hit any of the right notes. Some of the gambles pay off... some don't.

C'est la vie.

All in all, things seem to go well though. People are laughing when they're supposed to be laughing... and the notes I'm singing seem to co-incide with the music being played... I guess you can't really ask for too much more. I'm happy. I look around often... everyone else in the band seems happy. This too makes me happy... and it puts my mind to rest a little.

Somehow we end up at the obligatory encore section. We have one more song... the big one. The song written to blow everyone's socks off. Dan's banjo just needs a tiny bit of tuning and I'm painfully aware of this. Time to fill the space with a few really choice lines I'd prepared on the bus earlier.

...

I'm sure I had something prepared... I'm sure of it.

...

It doesn't matter... just say something.

...

Anything. SAY. ANYTHING.

After a small amount of time which seems to stretch beyond all reasonable realms of acceptability, the banjo's ready and we get to it. It goes swimmingly and people are very nice to us afterwards. I feel grateful, but I also feel very very tired. Were my feet this sore throughout the ENTIRE gig? I feel like I would have noticed... I feel like I would have screamed.

They still hurt now. My brain's also very mushy... so I apologize if you made it this far and feel unsatisfied... I'm expecting to read this tomorrow and want to delete it. I'll resist the urge.

See you soon.

- Joe. x

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Setlist for 18/11/11:

Lillipad Lover
Inspector Katz
Hey Ya
D.U.I
Mr. Dinosaur
Herb the Taxi Driver
Dayglow
My Voice
Goose in 4D
Made With Love
Mary the Snowdeer, I Hate You
David Bryant Tried to Section and Kill Me
Too Late to Mate
Chad
---
Bonkers
The Rules