After our first headline appearance at Joseph's Well in December, the promoter Dave had been so impressed that he offered us another show in the new year. And this time we could choose our own support bands. We thought this was a LARGE deal. We were quite insecure when we started out and, like many young bands, we were constantly looking for acceptance and some indication that we were going to make it. Man. Of course looking back at the January listings flyer now, with it's abundance of 'guests', 'special guests' and 'TBCs' where band names should be, its easy to conclude that, rather than seeing us as The Next Big Thing, Dave was just desperate to book someone, anyone...
In January 2000 Joseph's Well was just another venue, a year or so later it would be THE place to play. The Leeds music scene wasn't that great when we first started out but things quickly picked up, thanks in part to some of the bands like Brazil, Visa and Lorimer.
The first band we asked to play with us was a group from Sheffield called Corinal. Their singer was friends with our guitarist Mike and, like us, they'd struggled to get gigs outside their home city. The plan was that they'd play with us at Joseph's Well then we'd support them at Sheffield Boardwalk, where they played the majority of their shows. A few weeks later we made a similar deal with Jacasta, a band from Halifax that our bass player Suggy knew; they'd play Leeds with us then we'd play the 'Love Spreads' night that they put on at Revival bar in Halifax. Boom.
The night started well with Jacasta putting in a strong performance. They sounded a bit like early Verve and their singer had a bit of the Ian Brown swagger about him. They seemed like nice guys too, although it's fair to say that they knew how good they were.
Despite concentrating on getting our friends and family to come to our headline show at the Cockpit two days later we'd managed to fill out the Well nicely and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Unfortunately we hadn't really thought much about the bill when we'd booked the supports. Corinal were kind of spidery post-punk, in the vein of Slint, and a world away from Jacasta and Novacain. I really liked them but I was in the minority and the crowd in the gig room thinned out considerably as their set progressed. I felt quite guilty that they hadn't got the audience they deserved but they seemed happy enough when I chatted to them at the end of their set. Unfortunately they split a few months afterwards so we never got our support slot at the Boardwalk. It would have been nice to play Sheffield but I imagine we'd have suffered from the same lack of interest from their fans given the difference in our styles.
By the time we went on stage I was a little on the drunk side. Since the shambolic events of our first headline show at the Duchess the previous summer we'd had a two drink limit but, because we'd booked both the supports and wanted to make sure we were there to help them out if needs be (after a support slot with Parisman where we were treated badly we were determined to do the right thing), we'd been at the Well since 4 o'clock with not much to do besides listen to live music and sip lager. Being pissed might not have been so bad if this hadn't been the gig where I made my début on backing vocals alongside Mike...
We began our set in a rather inauspicious fashion, with Leigh's acoustic guitar cutting out due to a problem with the jack lead. While Mike swapped the cable, me, Sug and Winny played the theme tune to Postman Pat. Awesome. Eventually we were able to play "End Of The World". We'd changed the start a little since our last show at the Duchess, skipping a verse and adding more guitar parts to make it a bit more interesting. Unfortunately we'd also added some backing vocals which I was in no fit state to sing. We managed to record the show by plugging my MiniDisc player into the sound desk and, listening back, it's fair to say that my out of tune drunken howls do little to improve the song.
Clockwise from top left: Playing "She Keeps Me", post gig HILARITY, little Winny/big drums, full band action.
After rather shonky versions of "Back Row Exit", "Stick To What You Know" and "M.F.S." we played our first new song of the year, "Step To It". The track was a slightly 'funky' {shudder} rock number, not a million miles from "M.F.S." and required me to play lots of widdly lead guitar, which I just about managed as I slowly emerged from my alcohol haze.
Because we were headlining we felt we had to play for longer than normal, so we added a short acoustic section to the middle of our set to pad things out a little. This proved to be good timing as Mike broke a string during "Step To It" and had chance to swap to his guitar for the white Les Paul our friend Gibbsy had lent us as a back up for the night, while me and Leigh played the one minute long Radiohead-esque "Paracetamol". We followed up with "She Keeps Me", the first song I'd written with Leigh back in 1998, with Mike on backing vocals.
Novacain - She Keeps Me (Live)
The fact that this is the best sounding song of the night should tell you all you need to know about the rest of the gig.
After the next song, "Party Politics", one of the drum mics fell off and me and Sug played an impromptu version of the Doctor Who theme tune while the sound technician sorted things out. Thankfully we managed to get through our final three songs without anything else going wrong. Well apart from me forgetting the verse chords to "New Song #1" anyway... A sloppy but energetic "Scarborough Warning" led into the last song "Second Time Around". Again it wasn't the tightest version we'd ever played but, listening to the tape, we sound like we were having fun.
I was slightly disappointed when we came off stage but at least it had been an enjoyable gig and the bad luck we'd had with various technical problems had come at the Well and not at the Cockpit, which we saw as a more prestigious show. We also had a gig in Halifax sorted through Jacasta and, at the time, thought we had another in Sheffield with Corinal. After we'd packed up we had some band photos taken. Me and Suggy look hammered in all of them. Ace.
I was slightly disappointed when we came off stage but at least it had been an enjoyable gig and the bad luck we'd had with various technical problems had come at the Well and not at the Cockpit, which we saw as a more prestigious show. We also had a gig in Halifax sorted through Jacasta and, at the time, thought we had another in Sheffield with Corinal. After we'd packed up we had some band photos taken. Me and Suggy look hammered in all of them. Ace.
Novacain pose in front of the stage at Joseph's Well post gig. Probably my favourite photo of the band.
Set list (Novacain)
- End Of The World
- Back Row Exit
- Stick To What You Know
- M.F.S.
- Step To It
- Paracetamol
- She Keeps Me
- Party Politics
- New Song #1
- Scarborough Warning
- Second Time Around
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