The story goes that, when bands meet other bands, Spinal Tap will INEVS come up in conversation. LOLs will be had about 'the Stonehenge scene' and 'the bit where the bassist gets stuck in the pod', while one guy, who hasn't actually seen the film, stands around awkwardly and tries to laugh in the right places.
"That bit in Spinal Tap where they are second on the bill to a puppet show? LMAO!"
Then the talk will take a rather strange turn... After mentioning the part where Spinal Tap get lost backstage, and in STARK CONTRAST with the usual self-aggrandising tosh ("we've got label interest" [unsigned bands], "we used to be massive" [formally successful signed bands] or "{aloof silence}" [currently successful signed bands]), the musicians will start to trade stories about their own misfortunes; competing to see who has had the worst gig, who has played to the least number of people &c. Having been in pop groups my entire adult life, I've got plenty o'anecdotes, but my trump card has to be this: on 30th August 1999 a group of old age pensioners staged a somnambulant reenactment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral on the village green at Gildersome. Novacain were the support act.
We'd been offered the gig by Emerald, the classic rock covers band our drummer Winny had been in before Novacain. We weren't exactly inundated with offers at the time, so we gratefully accepted. I think the day had something to do with The Junction pub (now the Elamis, a slightly above average Indian restaurant), but I'm not entirely sure. Either way, there was a family vibe to the event, with various kids activities going on, in between Emerald, us and the Coffin Dodging Cowboys.
Playing gigs has never bothered me, but I've always felt a right berk soundchecking when people were watching. The venues we'd played up to this point, such as The Duchess and The Cockpit, shut during soundchecks, so it wasn't so much of a problem. There may have been one or two people knocking about, but they were from the other bands, and were more concerned with telling each other that they had "label interest" and LOLing at Spinal Tap than critiquing our performance. Gildersome Green was the first time that we had to soundcheck in front of 'the fans' and I DID NOT LIKE IT. Everyone watched us intently as we took to the stage (a curtain-sided trailer, which had been parked on the grassy area next to The Junction), failing to understand that our actual performance hadn't started yet. Ordinarily we played in the dark, so it was hard to make out the crowd, but it was the middle of the afternoon at Gildersome and I could see every single GAZING FACE. OhGodmakeitstop.
Once the levels were set, I instantly calmed down and turned my mind to the issue of the American flag that Emerald had tied around the mic stand. That was simply not happening. We hastily unwrapped Old Glory, and shoved it on Emerald's drum kit as soon as we returned to the stage for our set.
From left to right: Me, Leigh, Suggy, Mike. Note the Stars and Stripes, unceremoniously dumped on the bass drum to the left of the stage.
Leigh had access to a video camera (the same one we used to film a practice session the year before), and his girlfriend agreed to record our performance. Which was awesome, as it ended up being one of our best early shows.
After Tom from Emerald introduced us, we launched into "Slipstream". I was mildly nervous, but it went pretty well, and we started to enjoy ourselves. I was still psyched about moving into my new house and going to the Leeds festival the day before, the sun was out, the sound on stage was really good and we'd practiced a lot following the slightly shambolic events of our last show. We also had backing vocals for the first time, with Mike taking up the... mic.
Novacain - Slipstream (Live)
"Please welcome... KNOWVACAIN!!!!!!!!" Probs worth pointing out that going to the Griffin Head pub on Thursday nights during my A-Levels is the nearest any of us got to being "from Gildersome".
"Stick To What You Know" and "End Of The World" were next and they both sounded really good. Again, the solid practicing we'd done before the show paid off. "M.F.S." was a bit sketchy though, as usual... The outro section was meant to be a duelling solo, with Sug and Win holding the song together while me and Mike traded incendiary lead guitar parts. Except we could rarely hear each other well enough on stage to actually trade lines. This wouldn't have been a problem if we'd wrote our parts beforehand, but we (mostly I) thought this was a cop out. Not only were we (mostly I) still learning guitar at the time, straining to hear each other and struggling to know when one should play is not a recipe for outstanding creativity.
We followed "M.F.S." with "Party Politics". I broke a string during the track which meant that we had to end without me playing "God Save The Queen". Shame. Watching the video back I'm impressed with the way everyone picked up on the fact that my string had failed me and realised the need to finish the song early, as well as the way Mike shoots off to get me his spare guitar (a Salmon pink Fender Stratocaster that he'd only bought a few weeks earlier) so we can carry on with the next song straight away. Not bad for a band who'd only played five gigs together. Not bad at all. AT ALL.
Novacain - Party Politics (Live)
As previously mentioned, I rather spoilt the recorded version with some slightly ham-fisted alt-rock guitar parts, but I think "Party Politics" sounds half-decent live.
After a bit of fumbling with Mike's Strat, which I'd only played once or twice before, we carried on with the evocatively titled "New Song #1". I always liked the song (I wrote the chords so that's probs not surprising) but, as a band, we felt it was a bit depressing. Around this time we became obsessed with writing more 'rocky' songs that would 'get the crowd going', so it only stayed in our set for the next four or five gigs.
Novacain - New Song #1 (Live)
Despite the enforced guitar change, I reckon "New Song #1" sounded pretty good at Gildersome Green.
We ended our set with a new song, "Back Row Exit", then "Second Time Around". The former was written the week before and was actually called "New Song #2" for a long time, until we renamed it after a phrase from the first verse. Like "M.F.S." and "Stick To What You Know", it was written by the whole band, with chords provided by Mikey C. Unfortunately, after being unhappy with the results of the recordings we'd been doing at Cherrytree, we'd decided not to go into the studio for a while, so the live performance from Gildersome Green is the only version we've got that's any good. Mike finished a two year music course at Huddersfield Tech in 1999, and went on to to study sound engineering at University so we made a few attempts to record songs ourselves with borrowed gear during practice between '99 and 2001, but I think we only got as far as recording drums for "Back Row Exit".
Novacain - Back Row Exit (Live)
I'm not sure the end needed to be that long, but I think we played the song well considering we only wrote it the previous Tuesday.
After we'd finished, the aforementioned O.K. Corral firefight took place on the grass to the left of the stage. Words cannot adequately describe how bizarre it was. A hushed silence enveloped the crowd as around 14 octogenarians appeared in cowboy hats and shuffled to their positions. They lined up with their backs to each other, raised their cap guns and stood still for what seemed like hours. Eventually they walked away from each other, with some of them getting confused and wandering off in different directions. After another substantial pause, they turned round and fired their cap guns at each other. And that was that. I'm no expert on the history of the American West, but I'm fairly sure their reenactment was less than one hundred percent accurate.
Gildersome Green, August 1999. Glastonbury rivalling crowds just out of shot.
The day ended with Emerald playing some classic rawk covers (after restoring the American flag to the main mic stand, natch). It was an enjoyable set and they managed to wrest the crowd from their shootout induced slumber. Bit of a strange gig all round then, but it ended up being really fun.
We probably played better at Gildersome Green than we'd ever done before, helped substantially by the extra work at band practice and the decent on stage sound. And we got asked for our autographs for the first time by some ill-informed kids when we went to get a drink in the Griffin pub after Emerald had played.
Bizarrely, we ended up writing a track called "Gildersome Green" later on, beginning a short lived tradition of writing songs about our own shows. By the time we recorded the demo version we'd changed the lyrics from "On Gildersome Green" to "Until The Sun Bleeds". This was probably A Good Thing.
Set List (Novacain)
- Slipstream
- Stick To What You Know
- End Of The World
- M.F.S.
- Party Politics
- New Song #1
- Back Row Exit
- Second Time Around
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