So, last night I went to see The Cortège play their first gig, at the Proud Galleries in Camden.
Firstly, an odd venue for gigs and the staff seemed to think everyone there for the gig were likely to be knifing people or something. Weird. Anyway, The Cortège were excellent. For those that don’t know, they feature Barry from In Search of Apollo (Jon and Steve’s old band) and they’re well worth checking out. They’re really fucking tight already and have some killer songs. Shame that they were sandwiched between two god awful indie bands.
The first band managed to sound like some terrible school Razorlight cover band playing their first gig at a talent show. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the venue looked like a scout hut or ymca, albeit with a noncey bar, rude staff, expensive drinks and a wholly unnecessary smoke machine that covered the entire room in smoke. The second band, who were on after The Cortege, were much more professional than the other indie dross before them, but equally as shit. Their singer looked like an indie Gary Barlow and their bass player looked like a rapist. Odd, but strangely entertaining!
For all the musicians out there, this is a cool blog post about the wonders of gigging. We’ve all played many a shit gig and I know I’m guilty of over considering whether or not to play a gig when offered. This blog makes a good point for shutting up and getting on with it. I’ve played many seemingly terrible gigs that were salvaged by something I couldn’t have predicted. In many ways that’s what makes gigging/touring fun.
It also reminded me of a blog by Frank Turner from ages ago about Black Flag, which you should read if you haven’t already, not least because Black Flag were a truly amazing band:
I just finished piecing together the first extremely rough cut footage of the tour video and it comes in at about 45 minutes so far… Lots to trim/cut/replace though.
Here’s part 3 of the tour in photos. This time, Birmingham:
Last night I started editing the tour video. Lots of shaky, out of focus footage of lorries (Thanks Mr Bennett!), but thankfully plenty of usable footage too. I thought I’d post some of the choice iPhone pics from the tour as a little teaser. This is what life on tour with Adam Bennett looks like, largely through the medium of the hipstamatic iPhone app!
So, I’m back form an ace tour. It was a laugh from start to finish. Big thanks to everyone who gave us a gig, put us up for night, fed us, listened and said hi.
I’ve transfered all the tour footage to my computer, so there’ll be a video somewhere in the near future, but for now here’s an ace video of Jim Lockey and The Solemn Sun performing ‘Battles’ from the Bristol gig. Enjoy:
So, I head out on a mini solo tour this week and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m touring with Adam Bennett and the dates are below. Huge thanks to my mate Conner for helping us out with a show on the Friday.
Thursday 22nd July – The Mother’s Ruin, Bristol -
with Oxygen Thief and Jim Lockey & The Solemn Sun
Friday 23rd July – House show, Milton Keynes -
email me for info – adam-at-adamboucher.com
Saturday 24th July – Addistock at The Brighthouse, Birmingham –
with Jim Lockey & The Solemn Sun, Andrew Cream and more!
Sunday 25th July – The Barge & Barrell, Tipton -
with Neil Morris and Carlos & The Jackal
Why not come along if we’re near you and say Hi.
I’ll be tweeting my adventures from the road (@adamboucher) so suggestions welcome for a suitable twitter hashtag for the tour…
