Mid Wales - Stank, 6 stitches, good people, rain, a lunk 'ead and an angry Farmer

We played Mid Wales on the weekend. Llandrindod Wells on the Friday and Brecon on the Saturday. We had to work that day so all went up in seperate cars, wasting petrol right left and centre. I left work about 4.45 and tanked up to Llandrindod in my stank mobile, with the door hanging off.

I had an operation on my hand to have a funky lump removed the week before, leaving me bandadged up with 6 stitches. I shouldnt have been driving let alone playing guitar. Anyway, I managed to get there hand in pain and arrived at the Hampton Hotel.

I walked in to a couple of locals and some guy and girl at the bar. They had no idea who we were, where the engineer was and who was gonna do the sound for us. The stage was full of random gear and no sign of a pa? After a few trips back and forth to this guys house we had all the gear to gig. We set up and the engineer got a banging sound for us......The others arrived, along with charlie the dog and we were ready to runk.

Time passed by and the place was still dead. Fuck it we said, lets enjoy it, the landlady was lovely and there seemed to be a few people at the front who were eager to see us, lets get some booze down us and hit em.

We played the gig to a mix of local drinkers and music enthusiasts. They loved it! Looking at us with a half whats this, half I love this, sort of bewildered faces. Then, half way through the gig, some lunk head came up to me and asked me to play Queens of the Stone age, ...'Fuck Off' I replied, 'Queens of the Stone Age?' WTF...Were an electro funk band with loops and samples and we aint a covers band anyway...Things like this are to be expected in some venues I know......but I dunno how the guy though we could knock out a QOTSA tune with a laptop, percussion and guitar with female vocals....

After the gig we had a fair few people buy cd's and sign up to the mailing list and got another two possible bookings, result!

We stayed in the hotel that night, and drank loads more. Some guys came to ask me if they could use my guitar, and I said yes in a drunken friendliness. What was I thinking? he proceeded to play and play and play and play and play and play rock covers and thrash out on my guitar while his mates cheered him on. We carried on drinking with some sound locals and funked off to bed about 3 am. Cracking night.

Woke up next morning and headed for Brecon. By this time my hand was sore after playing the gig the night before, the stitches were bursting open!

Arrived at the Markets Tavern and were greeted by some great people all ready to help...set up sorted out the PA and mooched about Brecon.

That night we had a different crowd, a mix of people and 20 coppers staying at the hotel. We knew this gig could go either way!

The opening track 'Stank Machine' had people body popping and grinning widely. So far so good. Then some complete knob head came to the front and went fucking nuts singing at the top off his voice over all the tune as loud as he could. You could tell he actually loved it, but he was spoiling it for everyone else. I was laffing like hell and angry at the same time....

The crowd loved the set. The nutter continued, Sally joined the guy in the end, giving him bits on the mic singing-- he was shite. Then to top it off, in between songs he went straight up to Sally and shouted, please suck my fucking cock! Sally replied 'No I will never suck your penis, you idiot' from that point on, he went quieter. We know you loved it! and we are all up for people on stage with us, having a laff and stuff but it's not your gig mate...SO FUCK OFF.............

The rest of the crowd loved it too, bouncing about, head bopping ....including the coppers, funky bobbies! We dropped Nools and High horses and people went nuts. We had them for the rest of the night.

....and we had it cooking in there.

We sold a shed loads of CD's and they booked us for another gig and a fezzie, result!

That night we camped out as the coppers took all the hotel beds....it was about -5 in June and pissed down like never before. Also I had to to repump the mattress at 5am due to dodgy valve syndrome, but it was cool, we had a laff. We got up in the morning and went to leave when the farmer who owned the campsite in his fishing gear, followed me in the pissing down rain, started accusing me of not paying, I thought it was per tent and we'd already payed 15 quid, but he said 'Not likely, people tend to pay to stay here'. He followed me and started poking me saying he needed paying, I gave him the money and called him a 'bell end', it felt good.

What a weekend, great laugh. My hand is battered though. Cant wait to do mid Wales again. We playing Brecon 23rd July and possibly Builth Wells. Also playing Brecon Jazz the weekend of August 13/14/15.

Thanks to all the people who came to see us, thanks to Chris the promoter, the engineers & the landlord and landladies.

Safe

Krik