Novacain + Tsuba + Daydream + Freeborn / Woodkirk Valley Country Club, Leeds

After we put on our own show at Woodkirk Valley in April, a regular promoter, Nick, had taken over the venue, with gigs every Friday night, under the guise of the 'Strychnine Lounge'. Novacain had played a few shows there without me over summer, while I was ill. I wasn't mad keen on Woodkirk, but apparently Nick really liked us and it was a good opportunity for the band to play somewhere other than Joseph's Well. Things obviously weren't going great though, and we found out shortly before we were due to play that Nick was moving the Strychnine Lounge to the Packhorse in Leeds. It also turned out that both Shilton UK and Big Blu had pulled out at short notice, so we'd be headlining.

When we got to the venue Nick told us that Gweedo, one of the replacement bands, had pulled out too, so his own group, Freeborn, opened the show. They played fast, old-school punk songs, and were entertaining if rather sloppy.

Next up were Daydream, who had a bunch of well-written, sixties influenced songs; like Commonside if they were good, I noted at the time. Their tunes could be unnecessarily heavy and their melodies weren't as memorable as they could have been, but overall they were a decent band.

We were pleased to find that Tsuba were the main support , after enjoying our show together at the Well in March. They played another great set of prog-indie, with Jeff Buckley-esque vocals. We talked about playing more gigs together afterwards (of course, this never happened) and I got a free copy of their ace E.P., 'Painted Ego'.

As the other bands had stepped in with only a few days notice, and as we'd played Joseph's Well the week before, we had a rather small audience, but we still had a lot of fun playing. The sound on-stage was terrible, but we were much more experienced than in our first year together, when poor monitor mixes had ruined a couple of performances at the Duchess, and we coped without too many problems. Having said that, the lead fell out of my guitar during "Step To It" and I didn't notice until Dad came up to the stage (some pallets laid on the floor) and told me. We encored with an impromptu version of "Party Politics", the first time we'd played the song since our April show at the same venue.

From left to right: Me, Win, Suggy, Leigh, Mike.

Set list (Novacain)

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