Kettering - Sawyers Venue - November 7th, 2009
Published: March 24, 2010

MUSIC LIVE '09 WEEKEND

HI-ON KETTERING 2009

Up in the morning, lamenting the spicy spirit, the three of us that remained loaded out the gear. Speed had already raced off to Kidderminster to see his family. After bidding a fond farewell to all at the Hog we hit the road for Kettering. A bit more Hulloween revision took place while we kept our eye out for the welcoming beacon of KFC. No spicy food for us for a while! We checked in at the Travelodge and made our way to the venue, soundtracked by a bit of Kate Rusby. Lovely!

Kettering was pretty good. When you have four gigs in as many days, they all tend to blur into one. Hulloween was well received to my memory, though Speed wasn't happy with his performance. The whole thing came off fine and we were fairly confident of doing a good enough job at the NEC the next morning. Hi-on put in their best performance of the weekend thus far, despite poor old Swifty not being able to hear himself onstage at all and my guitar cable being unexpectedly ejaculated from the front of my pre-amp.

The real drama started, as ever, after the gig. Mr Dugginson found a rather amusing Halloween costume which seemed to depict the demise of the Daily Express's favourite maternal figurehead, while Jonno took great joy in noting the similarities between me and "Scott the Rapist", a character adorning the walls of a quite impressively graffiti-laden dressing room. Knowing we had an early morning start, we packed down with unusual tenacity and the time came to get stuff in the van. Unfortunately, Doctor Swift could not quite locate the van keys. This happened last time at Sawyers, so we turfed out the dressing room where they'd turned up last time. No sign. We combed the debris on stage right. No sign. I was the last man in the van, and while I couldn't recall giving the keys back to Swifty I knew that I had definitely not shut them in the van. I searched my pockets three times, my side of the stage, my bags (twice), and still there was no sign. Even the venue staff joined the hunt, relishing in the idiocy of a band who, let's be honest, couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery. Swifty checked his pockets at least four times, and there was no sign.

Fifth time was the charm. They were in his jacket pocket the whole time, caught in headphones or something equally innocuous. Once we'd all beaten him senseless, we piled him bloodied and broken behind the wheel of the van and we limped back to the Travelodge. Duggers was in an understandably black mood, having been looking forward to a good night's sleep before showcasing his awesome vocal talents in front of what was bound to be a large crowd. Speed had gone back to Kiddy, and after dropping our singer at the 'lodge Swifty and I ventured off in search of Ginsters. Returning with snacks we were greeted with the news that Speed was currently racing back home to attend to a family emergency. I won't go into the details in this diary, but our thoughts were all with him and his family.

Next stop, NEC...

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