At the next band practice we showed them to the rest of Novacain. Leigh went first, playing "Soap On A Rope", a super catchy pop song with slightly cheesy lyrics, "Rose & Drowned", a melancholy number whose title was inspired by our ill-fated gig at the 'Rose & Crown' pub the year before, and "Shot An Arrow", a fantastic, slightly psychedelic track, with lots of different parts that I thought was one of the best songs Leigh had ever written. All three had potential, and I felt more than a little embarrassed having to follow with my own compositions. I played "Statics" first, which was a quirky, acoustic song, with Dylanesque lyrics about an actress arriving at a hotel, with each verse taking the voice of the various characters at the scene. It sounded sod all like Novacain. I followed it with another song, which I've completely forgotten over the years. I'm sure it sounded sod all like Novacain though.
I was expecting everyone to be excited about the new material, but when I suggested that we work on one of the songs, Mike, Win and Sug seemed to find their shoes super interesting and we ended up practising our regular set. I later found out that the rest of Novacain actually quite liked the tunes that Leigh and I had played them (we actually played an impromptu version of "Soap On A Rope" at our next gig) but they felt we could only really progress if we concentrated all our efforts on writing together as a band. This wasn't necessarily such a bad idea, but, in hindsight, I think we were foolish to leave the likes of "Shot An Arrow" in the vault, and I'm not sure why we couldn't have continued to write together and play Leigh's tunes as well...
This was the last time Leigh brought a batch of songs to band practice and "Quick Release", which we'd worked on back in the summer, proved to be the last song of his that ended up in our regular set. I think Leigh was somewhat hurt by the indifferent response to the tracks he'd spent all weekend writing and I suspect that his later, apparent, ambivalence towards the band could trace its roots to this practice session.
The following week Suggy asked if we wanted to play at the White Hart pub in Thornhill, for the birthday party of twin brothers who were friends with him and Mike. We'd avoided 'pub gigs' after the Rose & Crown show the previous November, but we needed something positive to focus on, as the atmosphere in the rehearsal room was pretty dismal at the time, so we agreed.
Despite playing a rather small number of shows for a band that had been going for over two years at this point (25, fact fans), we'd had our fair share of odd gigs. From problems with sound on-stage to supporting an OAP reenactment of the gunfight at the O.K. Coral, we thought we'd seen it all. How wrong we were...
Against the backdrop of the calamitous fuck up that was the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election, we arrived at the White Hart and had a reasonable soundcheck. We'd rehearsed some older songs to pad things out, but hadn't had time to learn any covers. Still, the actual set went ok, despite the fact that we only played to around 10/15 people, with the majority of party goers getting drunk round the other side of the bar.
We'd kept a song back in case we were asked for an encore, but I was definitely ready to pack up and leave when we came off. Sug had other ideas. The twins had apparently loved our performance and wanted us to play some Beatles songs. Suggy suggested that we play "Day Tripper" and wouldn't take no for an answer. Given that a) we'd never played it before and b) we had only the vaguest idea possible of the lyrics / arrangement / chords, I was quite impressed that we lasted for around 20 seconds before the song ground to a halt. Unperturbed, Sug then said we should "jam". I was not keen on the idea, and neither was Leigh, so, as a compromise we decided to cycle round the verse and chorus of "Soap On A Rope", as at least it would provide us with a basic structure, and give Leigh something to sing. I have largely blotted the memory of this jam out my mind, but I'm sure it was totes the most amazing thing ever... We ended the encore in more conventional fashion, playing "Scarborough Warning" for the first time in months, before finishing with "The Way She Talks". The landlord was sufficiently impressed to offer us a paid gig a few weeks later so it can't have been that bad I suppose.
And then the real fun began. Bootsy, a friend of Mike and Sug's who we'd last seen at Woodkirk Valley in April, had been acting strangely all night. Amongst other things, he'd deliberately tried to wind me up by banging on about how boring Novacain were, and telling me we reminded him of Stereophonics, and he kept getting his arse out in front of the twins' family. As the rest of us were putting our gear away he turned his attentions to Leigh, kissing his neck, feeling his backside and continually asking if he was bisexual. Things were reasonably good humoured until Bootsy suddenly started screaming that he wasn't gay and called Leigh a "fucking dickhead". After a few minutes of this Leigh snapped and asked Bootsy if he wanted to "take this outside". Which Bootsy rather foolishly agreed to. After we realised what was going on, Mike and I broke things up. Mike was really pissed off and said he wouldn't give Bootsy a lift home, so he started crying and climbed the motorway bridge to the right of the car park and threatened to throw himself off. By this time the entire pub was outside trying to talk him out of it. Leigh ended up having a chat with him, and we gave him a lift home when he came down. The journey was predictably awkward...
Set list (Novacain)
- Sibling
- Back Row Exit
- Step To It
- Stick To What You Know
- Party Politics
- Quick Release
- Gibbsy's Street
- One For The People
- End Of The World Encore
- Soap On A Rope
- Scarborugh Warning
- The Way She Talks
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