Commonside + Novacain + Slopey Johnson / Joseph's Well, Leeds

After recording a bunch of old acoustic songs in June, we decided to work up a full-band arrangement of a track called "Until The Sun Bleeds" that had been knocking about for around a year at that point. It was written by Mike and Leigh, and was originally called "Gildersome Green", after a rather odd gig we performed at said Green in August '99. Despite toiling with the song for a month and a half, we couldn't get it to sound right. Although we'd struggled to write at various points over the past twelve months, this felt like a new low.

*sigh*

Still, at least our next show was on a Saturday night so we stood a chance of getting more than 11 people through the door. And we'd worked on our set to try and eliminate the, sometimes, awkward gaps between tracks.

The appallingly named 'Slopey Johnson' opened with a bunch of reasonable jazzy/funk songs. I thought they were quite good, although the crowd noticeably thinned out as they played.

We were hoping for a TRIUMPHANT RETURN to the Well, after our poorly attended show there in August, but we ended up with a reasonable crowd, rather than hoards of rabid Novacain fanatics. According to my diary, there were 25 paying customers, plus a few who snuck into the gig room (easily done in those days). For this we came away with the princely sum of £21. Stunning.

Our set started badly, with Sug playing the intro to "The Way She Talks" before our drummer Win was ready. After stopping and starting again, Sug then played the middle 8 in the wrong place. Things got much better though, and the transitions between songs sounded more professional than usual, especially when Win started "Gibbsy's Street" as Leigh was still singing the last line of "Quick Release".

From left to right: Me, Sug, Winny, Leigh, Mikey C.

Me and Suggy were rocking our Idlewild and ADF t-shirts, freshly purchased from the Leeds Festival a few weeks earlier.

We finished with "End Of The World", which had a newly elongated ending, during which I placed my watch over the pickups on my guitar and messed around with artfully worked the controls on my delay pedal, to give a kind of 'ticking clock' effect (funnily enough).

Leigh and Mike, playing it cool.

Commonside closed proceedings with their brand of below-average indie-rock. The band had been going since the the late 1800's, so they were very 'tight' and everything, but I really couldn't see the appeal. According to my diary, the singer was wearing shades and the drummer was a "total tosser". Good times.

By late 2000, The Well felt very much like my local. A load of friends lived round the corner so I drank there two or three times a week, we came semi-regularly to see bands, and it had become Novacain's 'home' venue. When I found out that Drugstore were playing, a band that were actually on the freakin' radio and had a hit record with their ace Thom Yorke collaboration, "El President", I was really chuffed. I missed the show because of band practice, and according to the sound tech who I spoke to before we went on, it wasn't that well attended thanks to the fuel protests that were taking place at the time. It still felt like a massive moment for the venue though and I've always seen the Drugstore gig as the very start of the period of time when Joseph's Well was the place to be for live music in Leeds.

Set list (Novacain)

1. The Way She Talks
2. Back Row Exit
3. Stick To What You Know
4. Quick Release
5. Gibbsy's Street
6. Step To It
7. Sibling
8. End Of The World