Bodega-tious!

On Saturday we made our first appearance at Nottingham's Bodega, which was really exciting! We were lucky enough to be invited to provide a support slot for Shanghai Treason's tour date, alongside the magnificent Henshaw. A typically generous line-up from promoters Both Eyes Open in Nottingham. So aside from album-related activities, that's been our core focus post Groovy Festival and we think it went rather well!

For anyone who has been to the venue, it's not the biggest - so putting on an evening with three bands, that has a strict curfew as there's a club night in the same venue after is a challenge even without any mishaps. We'd had reassuring instructions come through, get to the venue for 5pm in time to load in and then soundcheck ahead of doors opening - the other two bands loading in and sound-checking at 3pm and 4pm respectively.

As lots of our gigs are rapid turnarounds at festivals and the like, it felt quite luxurious to have the comfort of a bit of time to set up, get our levels right, make sure the monitors are giving us the sounds we need to hear. Delicious!

However, this is more of a story of making the best of things not being ideal - through no fault of their own (an issue on the M1), members of Shanghai Treason hadn't made it in time which meant with mere minutes 'til doors due to open there was stuff everywhere, Shanghai Treason got themselves sound-checked more quickly than they'd have liked, leaving ever dwindling time for Henshaw and us to get sorted.

With doors now delayed slightly, we managed to get what we needed to do with the poor rushed sound technician - we're pretty well versed in a quick set up, so whilst it's a bit stressful and we didn't quite get our monitor mix right, we launched into what was only a 30 minute set. It was a good set, a good sized crowd in responding well. It was really enjoyable to let loose after the rush of getting ready - and seemed like it was over before it started!

Of course, just as we needed to set up quickly we needed to get cleared quick too - with no real backstage area of the venue that means lugging stuff through the crowd to the back of the room. Luckily as we don't use amps it's not too bad a job, and Jim having to use Shanghai's drumkit meant just breakables, snare, stook etc (and the not inconsiderable factor of reconfiguring the drumkit back to right-handed mode!). Pedalboards, instruments and sundries for the rest of us.

Then there's a chance to breathe! And of course, perhaps most importantly, try to cram all of us into the Photo Booth at the venue - we succeeded in this, but unfortunately Jamie and Ellie still ended up out of shot! We've noted that there's a booth at Rough Trade so we shall certainly be reattempting this feat next month when we launch our album there!

That gave us the chance to enjoy similarly storming sets from Henshaw, and then the electric headline act from Shanghai Treason. You'd not know from watching either of them that it had been an unholy rush to get everything ready on time, and hopefully it wasn't obvious from us either - nights like these are like the proverbial swan, graceful and majestic above water but frantically padding like a bogger to achieve this!

Promoters like Lee and Jayne from Both Eyes Open are real heroes - as a punter their nights at The Maze were legendary, packing in a ridiculous amount of music for a very modest ticket price, even with that on offer now (and admittedly, up against a lot of other competing gigs on this night in particular) it's a real challenge in cash-strapped times to get events off the ground, but with hard work from these guys and bands alike in promoting nights like this can happen. We're very thankful to have been involved.

Next outing for us is Murphyfest. We have a week off from rehearsing as Russ is on an all too rare holiday (sic). In album news, it's approved its digital checks and even now is winging its way to Spotify, Apple Music et al ready for release on 26th April, and the files to make it into a physical CD are also en route to where they need to be so that should be all good as well! We just need to work out how we plan to reveal more details about the album over the coming weeks - what do you think we should do?