Legendary Hope, Cool Colchester and Gig Heaven in W1

After an amazing 22 gigs in May, June is come and we’ve got some time to enjoy the drought inducing sunshine.
And where better to do that than the, now legendary, HOPE weekender: Deptford goes to the country and kicks its boots off. When once we might’ve picked hops, now we put up tents and make music all day and, yes, all of the night. Bruise were asked to play at the Piano Bar. It’s always the coolest gathering place at the festival and, since this was Thursday and things hadn’t official kicked off yet, we played an acoustic set (and I mean NO amplification) to the select bunch that’d arrived early enough to bag the best pitches. It was a velvet night, the campfire crackled and we kept everything very calm – “Don’t Make Me Wait”, “Alright”, “Someone Else’s Garden” – that sort of thing. We played and sang for about an hour then gave over to HOPEs biggest supporter, Glen Tilbrook, who’d brought his entire vinyl collection (maybe) and a couple of decks. I’ve never heard such a genuinely eclectic DJ, and we hung out with the bars fabulous hosts Jerry and Chris and nodded along to the tunes ‘til our tent lured us to bed.
Friday morning: we scorched a full English over camping Gaz and looked forward to the arrival of the wonderful Bob Kelly who was coming down to play bass at our full electric gig on the main stage that night. The weather was glorious so killing time ‘til our – YES, headline! - slot was easy. Wander the field, meet everyone we know, take a beer, take another beer, take a lie down. About ten-ish we went up to catch the band playing before us and, hey, it’s Dodgy; Cool Britannia’s best band, then hit the stage ourselves in full festival mode – “Excuse Me”, “Mr Rat”, “The Game” – a major ROCK experience. Pardon my cliché but, the crowd went wild! WILD! (Check out Anton French’s footage at http://vimeo.com/25311031 )
). Post show, Isobel got caught for an interview by a passing camera crew so Bob and I had a few with Matt and Nigel (outa Dodgy) then off to the Piano Bar for a few more before falling down. Many thanks to Dave, Maxine, Ed, Jerry and Chris for giving us such a great time. Frankly, Glastonbury can eat their shorts.
Throwing Bob out at Framlingham Wimple railway station, we headed home for pain killers and to change our suits, then off to Colchester for a gig at the Bull. This is a brilliant pub with a real commitment to live music. It’s always heaving with an admirably mixed crowd and they give us a big welcome. It was just the two of us, electric, and as challenging as you like – “Three Ravens”, “Stranger In You”, “Little Victories” – and the room gradually filled up as the evening progressed. There’s always a covers band in the back bar at the Bull so it’s doubly encouraging that people should chose original songs over familiar hits. Big up Essex, I say.
The following Friday we’re back in town to play for the very wonderful Substance Music at our favourite West End venue, The Spice Of Life. Substance (Shaun, John, Terry and Jay) have been supporters and friends of Bruise almost from the beginning. They always book a cool and cohesive evening of bands then give us the top slot, so feeling like ROCKSTARS we give our best, and that night was no exception. The three piece (Bob’s back – hoorah!) sounds massive in the cellar bar and Jay’s attention to sound brings out all the impact and all the dynamics that we put into the music. Gig heaven W1.

A Growling, Spitting and Snarling Stratocaster.

Friday 27th May saw day one of year one of London International Pop Overthrow. If you read last weeks blog you’ll know we were up in Liverpool playing the well established Liverpool IPO at the Cavern Club. So IPO had taken over the Bull and Gate in Kentish Town and it was a real pleasure to be back there. As always with IPO it was a rollercoaster of bands and Bruise were the last band on for the night, quite a privilege really. Jim and I were very happy to have Bob Kelly along playing bass, it’s such a treat for us and one we would enjoy for all this weekends gigs. We did what we do, we did it well, we took a bow and waved goodbye to the blurry eyed power pop fans as they stumbled onto their night busses home, aaaahhhh….
Saturday 28th Bruise returned home to The Wickham Arms. It was Champions Cup Final, or was it FA League finale, no no it was Premiership Celebrity Face-Off . I’m ignorant of the way football works but I was not ignorant of the fact that the game wasn’t supposed to end until 10pm, cutting into valuable playing time. So we decided, one long set, no breaks. We would start as the footy ended and play till the curfew. As it happens the match ended sharp at 9.45 and we were still setting up, by 10pm we were launching into the opening number. I felt relaxed and we were locked in from very early on. There’s so much I love about the heavy touring schedule; the travel; the people; but if I had to choose one thing it’s the impact all these gigs have had on live shows. We’re sharp, we’re dynamic, it feels great. So we went on a wild ride opening up with the baritone guitar with the mid pace ‘Girls Best Friend’ taking it up to ‘Coldburn’ ‘The Game’ ‘The Northern Line’ ‘I Don’t Like You’ and down again to ‘Silvertown’ all feeling good at this point. Swapped over to the Strat, this guitar feels a little harder, it doesn’t have the warm round edges that the baritone does, the Strat growls, it spits and snarls like a big cat and I love it. The audience was superb, a joyful mix of friends and strangers, a little bit of dancing, lots of craning heads it felt so good, a total joy to be back home. After playing for an hour and a half without a break I still felt good. We got a huge roar of appreciation as we closed the set with Miss Bigfish. Young, old, groovy and geeky all joined together and made us feel like small immortals. I am so grateful and proud to look into the audience and see the pleasure in peoples faces and I love the variety from grey hair or walking stick to skinny jeans or eyeliner. ‘Three Ravens’ was the encore and nobody was disappointed. A wonderful, wonderful night for Bruise. I’m so glad you loved it too. Thank you to Jonathon and Sarah for coming some miles to see us play, Bo for running the night, The Wickham for being supportive of Bruise, association football for keeping it short, and every blighter who was there. HURRAH!
Sunday 29th we were off to the final day of Meadowlands Festival, set in the imposing grounds of Glynde Place. Rubbing bumpers with the black tie crowd for the opera just down the road, it was a truly beautiful sight. It was however blowing a gale which took the shine off proceedings a bit. We were on the Radio Reverb/ Hutchins Guitars stage which had a warm well balanced sound and when we hit the stage it felt really good. Bless all sound engineers who do festival sound. Bless their sleepless, sandwich fueled weekends. Bless their bleeding ears and fried brains when it gets to the last few bands on Sunday evening. Our chap was holding up amazingly well under the circs, fragilely sipping from a polystyrene cup of tea ‘what’s the line up?’ he asks and gently slips away back to the sound desk. We delivered 40 minutes, all original and all solid and confident, there was a monitoring issue for us but halfway through the set a connection was made and the samples and vocals became audible from the stage and I started to feel like we were having a musical experience. Smashing stuff from all those bright eyed assistants recruited by Radio Reverb (everything a local radio station should aspire to be) and Hutchins Guitars (a total asset to the musicians of Brighton & Hove and beyond), special thanks to Jeff and Gary!