The doors opened at 8:30 and the first support group, Smug Pariah, started
playing at 9:00. They weren't bad at all, but they only played for twenty
minutes.
Despite chants of "more more!" coming from the crowd, the singer/guitarist simply
shouted "fuck off" and left the stage. At this point it wasn't too busy, and the
crowd wasn't too involved. The three members of Smug Pariah then came out and joined
the crowd and chatted to a few people (including me). They seemed pretty sorted
blokes and they were looking forward to supporting China Drum's other support,
Groop Dogdrill, in the future.
At about 9:45, Groop Dogdrill emerged. Another
three-some, and again, not bad at all. The crowd were getting into it more at
this point and they played for about forty five minutes before leaving. They seemed to
have one extremely dedicated fan - this one guy was up at the front moshing and
in between one of the songs, he goes "I've seen them 17 times!"
Bill McQueen came out first at 10:30 and cheers went up all round the bar.
He just crouched and fiddled with his guitar as Jan what's-his-face sat at his
drum set. Then Adam Lee and Dave McQueen came out and waved the crowd forward
and encouraged them to get up to the stage. In what seemed like a split second,
the moshers had assembled and by now the whole place was getting busy. I just
knew they'd start with One Thing and they did. Everyone went mad. It was pretty
rough at the front, and the stage was in serious danger of getting totally
over-run.
The bouncers pushed their way to the front of the stage to keep people back. By
now China Drum were playing Fiction of Life and in the middle Adam made some
comment on the "Choose Life " song and basically took the piss, but I can't
remember exactly what he said. Adam then threw his microphone into the crowd
and everyone bundled towards it to shout the lyrics to the song. Anyhow, China
Drum suddenly stopped and Adam told the bouncers to piss off and he said they'd
take full responsibility for the crowd, what a cool guy. With the bouncers gone,
the stage was invaded. There was still one big guy, who I think was travelling with
China Drum, getting people off the stage. Guilty Deafness was the third song, and
Adam Lee put a lot of energy into it. Crowd surfing and stage diving was now
happening a lot and personally I was getting crushed against the front of the
stage.
From here on I can't remember the order of the songs, nor exactly which
ones they did. 60 Seconds was really good and everyone knew exactly when it
was to explode into the loud part. The whole gig was such good quality that the
songs sounded pretty much like the album versions. The main difference was that
the vocals were relativley quiet, even though Adam was screaming into his
microphone! Adam pointed at my mate and said "that guy's got the biggest
fucking smile I've ever seen!" and then he started rolling around on the stage,
as you do.
A Rupert the Bear toy was waved over the crowd and then bashed
repeatedly on Jan's drums. Throughout the whole gig, Dave was going mad and
seemed really into it, but Bill just stood there and was a bit boring really, but
I don't know what I expected him to do!
China Drum left the stage at about 11:15 only to come back out a couple of minutes later. Adam had a bunch of grapes and tried to throw one up and catch it in his mouth but failed. He then threw a few into the crowd who were impressed that refreshment was free. Can't Stop These Things was brilliant, opening up with the drums and with Adam doing shuttle runs back and forth across the stage. His T-Shirt had now turned a whole shade darker because of the sweat but he was still really hyper active. Meaning wasn't the acoustic album version but was as loud as the rest of the songs and sped up a lot. The crowd wanted Wuthering Heights, and Adam had words with Dave and Bill before meeting the crowds demands - Kate Bush would've been proud of that one.
At about 11:45 everything ended, Adam and Dave threw themselves into the crowd. Dave didn't stay up too long and fell down quite hard and just lay there, Adam was held up, passed around and back onto the stage before leaving the stage. Afterwards, I spoke to Adam and asked why the Joiners gig was cancelled and he said it wasn't anything to do with them and he also said they may return to the Bournemouth/Southampton area in February/March of next year, let's hope so.