The Plague Doctors have had a strange old year. I can't remember everything we did, especially not the stuff we did back in January, so I'll just pick out some of the highlights.
PRESTON
We played at a festival in Preston in the summer to an audience of precisely no one. It was in the upstairs room of a pub at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon some time at the arse end of summer. The crowd consisted of the soundman, the promoter and our entourage of one.
Inspired by the complete lack of interest, I decided to go all out Freddie Mercury at Wembley, leading our entourage to describe it as one of our best ever gigs, despite no one being there.
SOWERBY BRIDGE
We fulfilled a long held dream of mine to play the Puzzle Hall Inn in Sowerby Bridge. It was a Tuesday night in early June, and virtually no one was there. Most of my so-called friends who live in Halifax didn't bother to turn up. THANKS GUYS. However, Party Andrei and his Afghan friend Ravi from the Nestle factory were there, which more than made up for it. They both enjoyed it, as did blog legend Claire Smith and her friend Lora.
We played a storming set, the highlight of which was the angry folded arms people on the table next to the stage getting up and leaving half way through.
Afterwards, we were paid £64 for our efforts, which remains the highest fee we have ever commanded. The last I heard, the Puzzle Hall was due to shut down because the owners couldn't afford to keep it open. I think it is entirely unfair to link these two events.
Other highlights included a decidedly perilous drive home through fog so thick you could top a shepherd's pie with it.
CHESTER
After a well coordinated but somewhat undignified Facebook campaign, we found ourselves on the bill at one of the heats of the Standon Calling battle of the bands contests. To the winner, a slot on the bill at one of the country's hippest music festivals. We went on second to last, after three bands so bad you actually felt sorry for them. Some of them had come down from Scotland to play in Chester, as it was the only heat that took place outside London.
There was literally no one there (again) in a cavernous trendy food pub bang in the middle of Hollyoaksville. But we had Brother Paul Thompson back on board for one night only and we gave it everything to try and impress the judging panel. We all thought we'd done pretty well, we were clearly the best band there so far and we started allowing ourselves to believe that we might just sneak it.
Then a band called The Feud came on. They were all dressed in white and they sounded slick, like Muse crossed with Editors. They had banter like “This is our new single, it's available on iTunes” and “We've just come off a European tour, it was great.” They had precisely no songs or tunes, just a collection of bits that sounded like they might be songs if you weren't really paying attention. They were the most godawful offensive pile of shite I've ever heard. And yes, I am bitter.
Within three seconds of The Feud starting, we knew the judging panel (a grade A behatted Shoreditch dick) was going to pick them and there was no point in any of us turning up. Sure enough, that happened. We drove back along the M56 in an angry mood, just glad that we we weren't going back to Scotland.
WALES
We played in Wales at the Workhouse Festival in early July. Somehow, some friendly Welsh hippies had got hold of Wasting My Time and decided they liked it, especially the dance routine. We tipped up in the middle of the Welsh Valleys late on a Friday night and set up camp, ready for our festival-slaying set the next day.
We didn't have long to wait, as our set took place at 11am on the Saturday morning. Again, not very many people turned up, but it was the premiere of my white suit jacket and sunglasses combo, and we had a very nice time. Apart from when some children wandered into the tent and John got the fear about playing Snipping Off Your Face in front of them. But it was all fine.
Later we wandered into the town I can't remember the name of and found out Raoul Moat had been cornered in Rothbury. Then we had fish and chips and went back on site, spending the evening discussing the plainly unworkable Freeman on the Land concept with a friendly Welsh hippy who might have been called Barry.
On the way home we visited a lovely waterfall, which was nice.
Other highlights of the year include a storming gig upstairs at Fuel in Withington where we threw flowers all over the stage and were cajoled into doing an encore, so we had to do our Christmas song, as we literally had no other songs to do.
We've not done any gigs for AGES, but normal Plague service will be resumed at some point in the New Year.
