There were two venues in London that I always wanted to play which are the 229 Club and The Hope and Anchor, legendary venue in Angel, North London, were U2 played on their way to success.
There was also one band in London that Vince and me are big fans of and that we always wanted to play with : Noxshi.
On Monday morning we were surprised to find in our myspace inbox a proposition from Noxshi to support them for two gigs at the 229 Club and the Hope and Anchor. It just made my day, and my week for sure.
Those gigs took place on last thursday and saturday.
We had two rehearsals in a row with Altercation, because like Ko ( our bass player ) said ''we better be good, but not just good in fact, very good''.
The 229 Club is a cool venue with a lot of potential concerning the space and sound. HiroshAmour played there in May, unfortunately the night they played was organized by some promoters who wanted to make a maximum of money on the doors and who were taking the whole thing with a corporate attitude.
That night we did was organized by Noxshi themselves, so they were in control of the line up and they was absolutely no pressure concerning the amount of people, even so we had a good crowd there.
There was another band on the bill called The Palpitations, kind of cabaret rock, I really liked their sound and the singer is adorable.
The night was called Altered beasts, there were a lot of psychedelic lights and atmosphere which gave us great pictures and a feeling we were in the 70's again.
We soundchecked on London City and Paranoia, it all went well.
Ko was saying that in his experience it's always when he had good soundchecks that the gigs are a mess.
When the time to go on stage arrived I was suprised to hear that everything on stage was just too loud. Vincent's guitar, Ko's bass, my mike, and the drums were a bit lost in all that, I couldn't really hear anything but we just carried on.
Phil Honey Jones was once again our guest guitarist. He did Love Suicide, Glam Sister and Paranoia with us. It was good for Love Suicide on a personnal level. I love that song on the E.P but when it comes to do it live it seems to be something missing, I can never live that song fully. I did this time, for the first time since we performed it, and I think the guitars bits that Phil was adding made the song closer to the E.P version which is probably why I enjoyed it more.
Glam Sister was too fast, and Paranoia was a small chaos. That's how it seemed from the stage. We had a encore request from Mark who arrived late and just saw the last song. ( even late for his gig yesterday at the Tommy's Flynn, almost late ;) so we did Artificial Paradise. I had to whisper the guitar melody to Vince and Ko as they couldn't remember it. We took off that song of our set quite early in the year. It was a fun version, I did about four verses and a lot of No More No More No More....
A bit disappointed with our first performance then, but still good fun and it was much enjoyable to see Noxshi do their set. They sounded just perfect. Shame they don't want to include Aliyah in their set any more, that song is an absolute wonder.
Saturday arrived. I had to wake up extra early to go to Alberto's place as I was expected for a photo shoot. I thought that'd be really good to do that shoot, be all made up and dressed for my gig in the evening.
I arrived at the Hope and Anchor for the soundchecks. Small stage with a camera that projects the stage in the pub area, so everyone can see and go down to the live room if they feel like it. A bit like The Bull and Gate, I like that kind of concept.
I noticed straight away at the soundchecks that we were going to have a better gig there, as the room was smaller. It all make a difference when you play in a bigger venue, the sound can get lost sometimes, be too loud than you think and not giving enough feedback on stage.
That wasn't the case this time, the sound engineer put a nice reverb on my voice and I had a pretty good feeling about the show.
Noxshi in contrary weren't too pleased with their sound, weird how it sometimes goes so differently for each band.
Our bass player was having a house party on the same night, so he had to rush to the soundcheck, go back to his party and then come back to the venue to do the gig to then leave straight after we finished. It must have been stressfull for him as it was for all of us, wondering if he would show up, and he did. :)
So we started the set, I made quite a few changes in the set list, it's always useful, and I took off Insomnia off the set, I want to rework the lyrics to make them clearer. I also put Paranoia in third position, instead of Insomnia, rather than at the end. Because it's a strong song (and a new one ) I thought third position would be good to keep people interested. And that change of setlist really worked.
The sound was wicked, I could hear everything, the audience's answer was a million time better than at the 229 club and we had photos taken by strangers. I'm hoping to get my hands on some pictures a guy took, who knows maybe they'll be on here next week.
The second band were called Tales of George, the singer looks so much like Alex Turner, singer of the Arctic Monkeys and not just physically, he also got the behaviour and the notes on stage. Cool band.
Noxshi did their set, in spite of what they thought of their sound on stage I really liked it. It was more intimate and deep. The 229 club might have been their best gig in term of performance as they seemed more inspired by the sound system. However their time at the Hope and Anchor was memorable. I love the singer's tools. He got this vibrations machine that is controlled by the moves of his hands, and it makes very dark and psychedelic effects.
Their guitars riffs are powerful, specially in their song Swan.
Check them out : www.myspace.com/noxshimusic
Also another thing you can go and see in your spare time is the new Healthy Junkies song, ''Cat Story'' : www.myspace.com/healthyjunkies
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