Dead 60's at The Liquid Room, Edinburgh 23/08/06

At incredibly short notice, we got invited to support successful Liverpudlian Clash-ska combo, The Dead 60s, at the rather lovely Liquid Room, a venue we'd never played before. Why it was so short notice, I do not know. Possibly the original support band had developed a morbid fear of street performers (jugglostiltophobia) and were thus unable to come anywhere near Edinburgh's Royal Mile during the Festival. Who knows.

Anyway, it was a juicy gig offer - but we had several problems. Helen was away on holiday, for starters, so we had no keyboard player. However, the solution was staring us in the face, quite literally, from behind the sound desk, in the shape of our multi-talented sound lady, Shona. In the five days we had before the gig, Shona learnt half an hours worth of meanies organ bits, found a suitably gonky pair of Dammers-esque shades, and brushed up on her on-the-spot dancing. Keyboard problem solved.

Problem two. Taking advantage of the sudden unpopularity of flights across the Atlantic, John Disco had got himself a wonderfully cheap holiday in Mexico, and was, when the gig offer came in, missing, presumed pissed on tequila, and not due back till the day of the show. So he only found out that he had a gig to play seconds after stepping off an 8-hour plane journey, the day after enjoying an extra special Mexican birthday. In typical Disco fashion, he took it in his stride - though you could see in his eyes that he wasn't quite sure whether he needed a shit or a haircut.

Problem three, me. Gig was a Wednesday and I ALWAYS have to work late on a Wednesday. To make matters worse, I'm currently well and truly on the boss' shitlist (for reasons too mortifying to discuss here) so there were no favours coming from him. So I worked like a dog for the week leading up to the gig (thus completely giving away the fact that most weeks, I don't) and caught the 6.30 Edinburgh train with a minute to spare, and got to the Liquid Room with five minutes to spare before the 7.45 stage time. BUT, despite all these behind the scenes heroics, the abiding memory most of the audience will have taken away from the night was of a substantially pissed up Stan, repeatedly encouraging them to go outside and mug some American tourists.

Highlight: "Gies yir chips, ya fanny."
Lowlight: Dead 60s got bottles of Stella in their rider, we got flipping Tennents.