24th September - Salford Sacred Trinity Church, Manchester (for Tom Whyman)
Ace Bushy Striptease had played a few shows by this point but I think this was our biggest (in terms of goodness of bands we were playing with, maybe not size) yet. We went on a big trip all the way up to Manchester to support Jonquil and This Town Needs Guns! It was made all the more exciting because we got to see Tom Whyman again and he is just about our favourite person ever because he is lovely and charming.
We (the three Bushys not already in Manchester or India) got the train up on the Tuesday and we spent the whole journey listening to our own songs and talking about how great we are in a bit of an egotistical bum fuck kind of way. Never mind, everyone is allowed to have a bit of a big headed moment every now and then, ours are usually replaced by a deep fear of getting spat on (or maybe in our mouths a bit) because we are totally rubbish. We were talking about which songs we'd love to play but couldn't without a drummer. That conversation helped pass the time. Arjun got told off by the train conductor and fell asleep.
On arriving into Manchester we noted how similar to Redditch it looked and got picked up from the train station by our generous kind hearted host/singer. She took us on a bus and it took us an hour to get back to her house because Manchester isn't as cool as Birmingham and there were too many students everywhere and cars and buses clogging up the roads. We got to her house and then we said hello to her housemates a bit and then we watched some television and then we went to get a curry. It took ages between ordering and receiving our food but it tasted quite nice when it came. 6/10. THEN we went back to Emma's house for a moment before going to a cafe and sitting down. They played 'You Can't Hurry Love' by the Concretes whilst we were chatting, it is one of the top ten songs of all time probably so we were quite happy. We left and when we got back I think Emma's housemates were watching pornography. That might have happened on Wednesday night though, I cannot remember rightly.
ANYWAYS! We woke up very early on Wednesday and went into the Manchester university music department and had a bit of a band practice and decided what songs we were going to play. Then we walked all the way across to the wrong practice studio and had a bit of a moment. We had some band practice and felt good about our rocking out.
We arrived at the venue very early and met some people and then Tom Whyman came along and we talked to him. We were worried that the other bands and the soundman wouldn't turn up by then all did in the end and we got started.
The first band on were the Empty Set and they were actually lovely and perfect. They sounded so fantastic in the church and we worried that we'd sound dreadful coming on after them. We did sound a bit dreadful maybe but we all played the right notes and had such a fun time shouting and jumping and stuff. It was great. Someone even came up to us and said we played well which was really flattering.
This Town Needs Guns had the honour of coming on after us and they were slick and brill. Jonquil finished the evening by playing some really great songs. This review was more detailed earlier on, I can't remember much of what happened later. Jonquil must have been good though as I bought a cd of theirs. I will buy the TTNG album when it comes out in a few weeks also. AND anything the Empty Set release ever. We have been so lucky that we have gotten to play with such great bands at every show we've done. Only the Bar Academy concert had duff bands on the lineup with us.
We left on Thursday and missed Tom Whyman terribly on the journey home *sob*.
Setlist
- The Introduction
- Panda Funk Unit
- Michael Kightly Is Pretty Rad
- "Arrogance Is My Middle Name", Said Will Davies Arrogantly
- Flying Bayonets
- By (p)Roxy
- Emma Champion: You Are The Champion Of Are <3s
- Mervyn & Isaac Find A CD