No. 3 - Southend

The vast majority of stories I've written on this blog about Raging Speedhorn, could easily have given you, the reader, the impression that we were a bunch of wankers, who did nothing but get pissed and cause trouble.

I want to state as a fact, that that is not the case. It just so happens that throughout the ten years of the band's history, most of the good stuff, the stuff worth writing about, happened under the influence of alcohol. We were just a gang of kids, constantly on tour and constantly in the vicinity of free booze. Sometimes, two and two, simply makes four...

We weren't a bunch of wankers, sometimes we just acted like it. We certainly never set out to abuse or hurt anyone. We were just having fun. Sometimes that got misinterpreted, sometimes it got out of hand, but we never meant any harm. One of my all-time favourite quotes describing the band, is accredited to our old tour bus driver, Chop. “You are a bunch of cunts, but you're loveable cunts”. I liked that. And I think he had it spot on.

There is though, a slightly more famous quote that springs to mind as I write about this particular show.

- For every rule, there is an exception.

That exception would be Chinnery's. Southend. July 7th, 1999.

If you are a member of one of the bands that shared the stage with us that night, and you somehow just happen to be reading this, then I sincerely apologise. If that night happens to be the one and only time our paths crossed, and you think I and the other five guys in my band are a pack of aresholes, you're justified in thinking so. This is one night we really did make ourselves out to be a “bunch of cunts”, not the loveable kind mind you, the regular straight-up kind, and this time we didn't even have the booze to blame...

We were ten or so shows into our first ever trip around the UK, playing small venues to no people on what many affectionately call the “toilet circuit”. The show in Southend was only the twelfth gig the band had ever played. It didn't matter to us then that the average attendance at the shows was around ten people. We knew we were a good band and we didn't really cared who shared that opinion, didn't care a fucking jot. This was the first band any of us had played in that had actually played more than two consecutive shows, what one might call a tour. That was more than enough for us at that point.

I have to admit in hindsight though that we were in a very fortunate position. We had a home town friend who worked for a big management company in London, who had, until we came along, a predominantly “R&B” tinged roster, and no, I don't mean The Rolling Stones or The Hollies, I mean Mark Morrison and that bird with the eye patch. Our friend, Dave, was very good at his job, even though he was working with music he had no real relation to. Luckily for us, when he got a sniff of our band, he really liked it, and coupled with the fact were from his darling Corby, he just knew he had to take care of us.

Dave worked out a deal with the owner of Green Island Management, a somewhat shady Jamaican character who went by the name of Johnny Laws, that stated he could take us on as part of a side company called Black Island, which would obviously cater to a more alternative form of music. When Dave go the go ahead, he got his friend Andrew employed, and the two of them together went about making our band then next big thing in the British metal scene. I've no doubt that Dave genuinely loved our band, but I think a big part of it was the challenge involved, and it was a challenge. Of course, they got some backing from Johnny Laws but Dave and Andrew were our men. And we were happy to go along for the ride. It was a simple deal for us, especially in the naivety of youth. Their plan was to just put us out on the road. It was a plan we were more than agreeable with. We were an extreme band who didn't have a decipherable lyric in any of our songs, if Dave thought he could make us big, then sure, give it a fucking go. We were just happy to get the fuck out of Corby for a while. Even playing to five people on a Tuesday night in Boston was better than working in a warehouse back home. As long as we could get our hands on some booze...

So even though we were living life very rough, sleeping in vans or in tents by the side of the road in freezing weather, sharing two tins of stewed steak and a bottle of White Lightning Cider between six people, we still had somebody looking after us, booking shows, getting us support slots and planning out a career for us. We had nothing to complain about. Although of course, we did complain.

As part of Dave and Andy's aim to get the band out on the road every day of every week, at least in the beginning, we ended up playing a lot of support shows to bigger bands. Dave had a lot of contacts at his dispersal and it was a relatively solid plan. Unfortunately, we ended up supporting a lot of crap bands, or bands that I certainly had no time for. It didn't bother me then as it would bother me now. In fact, today it would simply not happen, but these are lessons I've learned. Back then we adhered to the philosophy of just getting the band seen. If we played a support show to three thousand people, and of that three thousand, thirty liked the band, then that's still thirty that would possibly come to our own show next time around. The trouble this plan ultimately brought was that we overkilled it a bit. We became known as a support band. Don't get me wrong, they took us all the way to headlining the Astoria in London to three thousand ourselves, but by the time we got there, the band, or at least that version of it, was almost spent. We'd given everything by that point and didn't have much more to offer.

The very first such show was at the very same London Astoria, supporting Ministry. Dave and Andy had booked us a small tour around this show, since we'd only played four gigs at that point. So we were going to go on a small spate of shows, with the Ministry show at the Astoria somewhere near the end of the run. Our own shows were attended by crowds of ten or so people, the Ministry show was going to be in front of a crowd of two and half thousand. Quite the fucking jump. Andy was coming out to these shows with us, preparing us for the first of “the most important show of our careers”. Southend Chinnery's was the night before the big show, and seen by Andy at least, as a full on dress rehearsal. For some reason, he was way more nervous than we were.

I had a bad feeling about this show from the moment we arrived. The “vibes” weren't that great. For a start, it was Southend, which is basically like Corby, but with sea and some tacky arcades. It was a Wednesday night and the venue seemed rather large to me. It could take at least two hundred people. There was no way that we'd play to even a quarter of that amount. To make things worse, we were headlining, or playing last on the bill. There were three other bands playing, and one of them, a band called...I want to say All? (but I can't really remember), who were from Southend anyway, did not seem too pleased with the line-up arrangement. They had a point to be fair. This was their home town (of which they seemed very proud), they'd been playing for a few years and certainly had more of a name then we did. Who the fuck were we really?

I've since learned that playing last, or headlining, is not always the best slot to play. If you're a nothing band, then playing last, after a band of local heroes, is actually a shit fucking slot. Everyone fucks off after the local heroes are done, so it's really them who are “headlining” anyway. You go on stage, but the party is over.

Anyway, the Southend boys were not happy with their slot on the bill, and they didn't try to hide it. They were a big bunch of fuckers with skin-heads too, and I found them a tad fucking intimidating. So, we just quietly go about loading in, sound-checking, and try to be polite to everyone in the venue. Andy, being American (sorry mate), doesn't find being quiet to be quite an easy a task to perform as we do, and couldn't give a piss about what the other bands think of the bill. He let's everyone in the place know what the deal is. Speedhorn have a hugely important gig tomorrow and they're playing last and going through the exact set that they'll be playing at the Astoria the following day. So, if things run late, then the bands on before us will be getting their sets cut. Tonight is all about our set. Now, Andy is just doing his job, but I remember myself and Tony being hid away in the van outside, dying of embarrassment. Gordon and Frank didn't seem to give too much of a fuck though. Gordon, unlike me, loves getting people's backs up. He actually seems to get a fucking thrill out of it.

So the vibes are bad. Andy keeps telling us how important the show is tomorrow and how tonight is the perfect opportunity to iron out any creases in the set. And of course, we're not allowed to drink. In truth, that's not exactly a law he has to enforce since we're all completely skint and the only way we'd be getting our hands on any booze is if he buys it, which tonight, he isn't...

We certainly ain't getting a rider out of Chinnery's, that's for sure.

So the first band plays and there are around twenty people in the venue. I can't remember a thing about them except the fact that they play for thirty minutes. Andy and Roddy, who is out driving the van and kind of tour managing us, are fucking livid. All the bands have been told that they have a twenty-five minute set list. If they play over-time then the rest of the bands get their set times cut, except Speedhorn of course. There is a curfew at the venue, but no matter what happens, Andy and Roddy will be seeing to it that we play the whole forty minute set that we're in essence, rehearsing for tomorrow.

So, Andy and Roddy give the first band a bollocking, and we hide in shame. The second band are Enmity, who's bass player, Paul Ryan, will later become a good friend and eventually our booking agent when he scores a job at The Agency. Paul is friends with Andy and tells him that he understands the deal, even though their set is cut down to twenty minutes. Paul always was a good guy. I'm sure he had to break it to his guys that they'd driven all the way to Southend just to play twenty minutes, and I'm sure his guys weren't happy about it. He never mentions it to us though, and they just get on with it. They play their set and sure enough, as soon as they're done, Roddy is up on stage ushering them off and loading their equipment for them.

So then it's time for Southend to go on stage. They don't look fucking pleased. Apparently Andy has just told them they have got sixteen minutes worth of set time to enjoy, due to the delay in change over time, and that it's nobody’s fault but their very own. The singer comments on this a few times during their set. I'm stood in the crowd, which by now is maybe thirty strong, and I'm wondering what the fuck is going on. Even though the guys in the band do seem like a bunch of turds, this doesn't seem right. They obviously go over their allotted set time, because before long Roddy and Andy are stood right in front of the stage, gesturing at them to cut their set but waving their hands in front of their throats. You know the gesture. Tony and I look on, laughing nervously. I know they mean well, and they don't care about any band but the one they're looking after, but for fuck sakes.

So it's finally our turn to get up and do our thing. It feels bad from the get go. Not the fact that, yes indeed, two thirds of the crowd have fucked off once Southend have finished playing, but more due to the fact that the sound on stage is absurd. I've played over eight hundred shows since I was sixteen years old and I still haven't found an answer to the mystery of the sound-check. I'd say that maybe forty percent of the time, the sound on stage that we've had whilst sound-checking, has somehow dramatically transformed into something else completely by the time you get back up there and play the show. The sound we had whilst checking tonight had not been the greatest, but it was a shit load better than the chaos that greets us by the time we go on stage for real. I wouldn't be surprised if the sound-guy hadn't deliberately fucked us over, due to the actions of some during the night. I wouldn't blame him if he had really. Nevertheless, when we kick into our first song, Superscud, we're greeted with a throbbing wall of muddy noise.

I'm looking at Gordon and I can see him playing, but I'm fucked if I can hear a beat coming from his drums. The same goes for Frank and John, and Tony on the other side of the stage may as well not even be there. All I can hear is myself and Darren's bass. Gordon is apparently having the same trouble. But whereas the rest of us are trying to put a brave face on it until we get to the end of the first song, Gordon is making no such effort, continuously mouthing to me and everyone else that, “he can't fucking hear shit!” It gets to the point where we're all playing different things. It sounds like fucking shite and almost...almost comes to a stop. At the start of the song we'd been bouncing around the stage, throwing shapes and giving it all, but by the end of the song we're strumming along, looking at each other, lost and confused. They say that the band on stage are far more sensitive to fuck ups than the crowd are, but even though the people here watching tonight have never heard our song Superscud, I'd be amazed if they believed it was supposed to sound like this.

We finally trudge to the song's end and Gordon goes off on one, shouting at me, at Frank and at the sound guy. He's shouting at us to turn everything in his monitor up and waving his stick in an upward motion to demonstrate what he means. We go into the second song and the sound is only worse. Gordon's monitor is now so loud that it's the only thing anyone on stage can hear. Gords looks equally as pissed of with this new monitor set up as he was with his previous. I look at Frank, who is getting on with it, but I can tell he's losing his rag.

In Speedhorn, Frank just screamed on top of our songs, but in reality he was the most talented of any of us. He was both an amazing drummer and guitarist. Gordon, being Frank's oldest friend, is a little sensitive to this issue. Insecure I guess you could say. Of course, Frank giving him dirty looks every time he fucks up doesn't help. This gets on my tits a bit. Frank played drums in our old band, and without doubting he is a great drummer, I think Gordon's simple battering style was more suited to us. But with Frank and Gordon being childhood friends, Frank has a hard time containing his frustration with what he deems as inferior drumming. I couldn't give a fuck about that. What I did give a fuck about is Gordon's total inability to hide his anger/embarrassment whilst on stage. Roddy spoke as much shite as sense during the years he toured with us, but if there is one thing that always stuck with me, it was this. You never show you're divided in front of anyone, you never argue in front of anyone and if things fuck up on stage, you get on with it like it's no problem. That is something Roddy definitely had right.

So we're half way through the second song and it's a fucking mess. By now Gordon is shouting at anyone who'll listen, or can hear him at least, that he wants his monitor turned off completely. The guy taking care of the monitors gets a barrage of abuse from Gords. I look over sympathetically at the man, but he just crosses his arms, shrugs his shoulders and smirks at me. He's obviously decided we're a bunch of cunts and he's fucking our gig off. So that's that.

The second song somehow makes it to the finish line, although barely.

Well this is going well.

The small amount of people left in the venue, stood in front of the stage, look bemused. Roddy and Andy look worried. Frank, looking like he wants to be anywhere but on the stage, offers a half assed apology to anyone who cares. We trundle on into the third song but we only make it half way through. Gordon loses us again and this time he just throws his sticks over his shoulders and the song comes to an abrupt halt. Frank doesn't even look at the rest of the band, he doesn't say anything to the small crowd, he just walks right off the front of the low stage and straight out the front door. Tony follows suite in exactly the same fashion. And then Daz, and then John. I put my guitar down and look at Gordon who is still sat behind his drums. “I hope the show tomorrow goes a bit better” he offers, with that cheeky smirk of his spread wide across his face. I can't help it, I burst out laughing.

We pack up and walk out the front of the venue to find out the score with Frank. Within seconds he and Gords are shouting and screaming at each other, Gordon giving his usual attitude, “Who gives a fuck anyway?” You have to love him really. He knows he fucked up, but there isn't a chance he's backing down if it means backing down to Frank. Frank just looks exasperated. The screaming continues with Roddy and Andy in the middle, trying to calm things down, as the remaining people who were at the show walk out and straight past us. Tony then points to the fact that the other bands on the bill must really think we're a bunch of wankers. After all that shit from Andy and Roddy, we only play two and a half songs. Even though it shouldn't have been funny, we all crack up anyway.

Andy pulls a bottle of vodka from somewhere and suggests we all head down to the to drink it. It's pretty fucking cold but the thought of drinking some booze by the sea after an alcohol-free disaster seems like the best idea I’ve heard all day. We all get pretty tipsy before everyone heads back to the van to sleep. For a while, Andy, Tony and I traipse around the back streets of Southend's sea front, looking for a cheap B&B for the night at the expense of Andy's credit card, but every single one declares itself full, so we join the other five guys and the eight of us bed down in whatever scrap of spare room of van floor we can make for ourselves.

The show the next night turned out to be a bit of a nothing event. We played on that huge stage at the famous London Astoria, to a shit load of people who couldn't have given a piss about us. We played ok, and although it wasn't a bad gig, it wasn't that great either. It was just...nothing really. And I've since come to the opinion that those shows are the worst of all.

Within four years, we'd be back on that stage, headlining, and playing what really was a great gig. And by that time, Gordon was a great drummer too.

No. 4 - Cork

In February 2008, at a show we were playing with Victims, in Gothenburg, Kev and I decided we were quitting Raging Speedhorn.

We'd drank a few beers when we'd come upon this decision, but the next day we confirmed to each other that it hadn't just been drunk-talk. We wanted to quit the band. About a week after we got home from the tour I phoned Gordon to let him know. I'd been nervous as hell about telling him, but those nerves soon turned to relief when he told me he'd been feeling the same way. The rest of the guys were soon informed and thankfully, everybody was in the same place. And that was that, after ten years together, Raging Speedhorn were splitting up.

I'd poured my heart and soul into the band since I was nineteen years old, and I was starting to feel drained by it. We'd written an album I was really proud of, an album that I could finally say I was one hundred percent happy with. But writing the record had been a real struggle. Not musically, but logistically. I lived in Sweden, the rest of the guys were spread out over the UK. We had no money. We only made money when we were on tour. We made no money standing about in a practice room, in fact, we lost money since the jobs we had didn't come with holiday pay. As proud as I was of that record, I knew I didn't have the energy to write another one in those circumstances. And I sure as fuck wasn't contemplating moving back to England...

But there was something else. Now that we'd written this record, I finally felt like I could let the band be. I wanted to move on and do something else. The rest of the guys felt the same way. The harmony in the band was better than ever. A lot of the old Speedhorn fans were not into the new record, but we didn't give a fuck about that. When we'd started the band, we'd never expected anyone to be into it, and we didn't really give a fuck anyway. I loved it when the band had that attitude. For the first time, in a long time, that attitude was back. With the band feeling this good internally, it felt like the perfect time to wind it up. I was glad that we could call time on the band, knowing that we were all friends. It would have sucked for the band to break up due to the fact we all hated each other, as might have been the case if we'd broken up after We Will Be Dead Tomorrow.

So the band officially announced it was breaking up and that we were going on a huge farewell tour, playing shows in mainland Europe, the UK and Ireland, and finally Japan. It was going to be the longest stretch of shows we'd played in the UK for a long, long time. And the whole thing was going to be one big celebration.

The first show of the UK/Ireland leg was Cork.

The shows we'd played in Europe had been hit and miss. Holland and Belgium were great, Germany was terrible. Just no promotion whatsoever. The guy putting the German shows on turned out to be a kid with a bit of money that wanted his band to play with Speedhorn. We got paid without any issues, but the guy had very little idea about putting shows on. It had been a disappointing end to things as far as the mainland was concerned. But the shows in the UK and Ireland had been given a lot of promotion, more advertising than a Speedhorn tour had been given in a long time. The tour was getting a bit of hype and we were determined to enjoy ourselves.

We'd played each these cities dozens of times, and although it felt slightly weird to be travelling to these places for the final time with the band, nostalgia, or indeed regret, sadness, whatever, didn't really play a part during this tour. We still had Japan to come after these shows..

So, the first gig was Cork and it was an afternoon show. The venue was already booked that night for another gig, but the promoter really wanted to be a part of the final tour and asked if we'd want to play an all-ages, afternoon show. We were more than happy to. It felt like an easy start to the tour. Play early, go out in Cork afterwards with some friends and get drunk.

Cork is a long way from Corby, which meant we had to leave the day before and get the ferry from Wales in the evening. Since we were driving in Betty, extra time always had to be taken into account. Kev had to work up until the last minute, so he was flying in from London early the next morning. The rest of us met up in Corby and drove off towards Cork on our final UK adventure. Lee was driving the van to the ferry. The plan was to get to Dublin, go out for some dinner and then sleep, before driving the rest of the journey in the morning.

We'd finally gotten around to servicing Betty. We decided that we'd do our best to get her running smoothly before her final journey with us. I'd just assumed that she was just a big, heavy, old girl and and oil change and service wouldn't make much of a difference. But after Gordon's brother Sandy had had a proper look at her, she was now running like a dream, carrying us proudly along the M4 at a steady seventy miles per hour, towards the ferry-port in Wales. Typical us. We'd driven thousands of miles throughout Europe, at painfully slow speeds, we'd driven countless night-time journeys just to make a trip every other band could cover in a day. And all for the lack of a simple fucking service. At least on this last voyage, she was going out with a bit of recovered pride.

With us flying along, the atmosphere in the van was great. Lee sat at the wheel, whilst the rest of us sat hunched up together up at the front, keeping him company, each of us happily swigging from a bottle of wine. I really enjoyed that journey. I knew we were setting off on our last road trip together, in Betty, and the shows were going to be a lot of fun. We were talking about how liberating it felt, going on tour for the last time, not having to care any more about the usual shite. We were only concerned with having a good time, and fuck the rest! I got a really cosy hit of that bottle of red wine.

After a night tucked up in my bunk in the van, we woke up early in Dublin. It took another couple of hours to get to Cork, and we arrived there in ample time, although Kev was already waiting for us. He got a flight out of London at something like 6 am. We found him in a café beside the venue, hanging out with some old guy who had bought him breakfast. Kev looked more than happy with that arrangement. The old guy, who was a very jovial chap, treated the rest of us to coffee, so we sat there and enjoyed his company for a while over a welcome cup of black coffee, before loading into the venue next door. It was now early afternoon. We were playing at five, the venue had to be cleared for six to allow for the next band to come in. It turns out that band is Gorgoroth, although I'm not sure which version of it.

So we load in, say hello to a few people with familiar faces, including an old friend of ours, Neeson, who back in the day, used to make it to a lot of shows. We hung out for a while, he told me he was going to try and make it to all four Ireland shows, just for old times sake. This afternoon's show is looking like it's going to be a good start to the tour. The venue, we've played a couple of times previously, has a good sized stage and usually a really good sound. The apartment above the bar is our dressing room for the day, and is fully stocked up with food and booze. We're all chuffed.

Everything goes smoothly at sound check. By the time we're done, we still have a couple of hours until doors, so we head up to the flat and tuck into the food, and dip a little into the booze. We're talking about saving most of it for after the show, although I notice as people are saying this, the generous rider we have, seems to be slowly diminishing... Gordon seems to be particularly enjoying himself, although he's not the only one. Since I'm tour managing I keep myself in check. Even if I want to loosen up, I have a hard time doing so, at least until I've been paid and the money is safely stored away. I mention to Gordon that he should take it a little easy, to which he just smirks and asks me, “What happened to not giving a fuck?”

Some old acquaintances, Five Must Die, are supporting tonight. They played with us in Ireland years ago and have hung out at shows since then. They're a good bunch of lads and it's fun hanging out with them in the dressing room for the afternoon. Everyone is in good spirits and there are quite a few people in for this early show by the time they go on stage. I'm looking forward to getting on stage, playing, getting paid, drinking a few beers and then heading to the pub.

We go on stage at exactly five pm. Quite a strange feeling going on stage in a dark club when it's bright daylight outside, but the vibe in the club is good.

This gig should have been smooth sailing...

The sound on the high stage is great and although it's compact, there's still plenty of room on it. There are a good few people in the crowd, even though it's Friday afternoon and most of them should still be at work. So the buzz on stage before we kick into Hate Song is great. That buzz though, lasts all of about three songs.

Somewhere during the fourth song, Gordon drops a beat. No big deal, he's done that before. He used to be bad for it in the early days but over time he learned not to let it affect him. He was always a bit of stick-dropper but after hundreds of gigs he'd crafted the art of finding a new stick without missing a beat. He'd joked before about acquiring some drumming gloves, which of course we could not allow to happen. I'd rather have a drummer with no sticks in his hands than a pair of leather fucking gloves! Gordon of course, only said such things to wind me up.

So Gords drops a beat here and there, I'm not concerned about it. We're all playing with a high intensity on stage and I don't think anyone in the crowd notices. Another few songs go by and although I can hear that Gords isn't having his best gig, I don't really let it concern me. The first show on tour is always a bit loose. I catch a glimpse of Jay on the other side of the stage though, and he doesn't look very impressed. I get a bit annoyed by that, because I don't want the rest of the band lagging just because Gords has made a couple of fuck ups. I shout over at him, telling him to pick it up a bit.

We're about two thirds of the way through the set when everything comes to a crashing end. Literally. Whatever song we're playing has ended prematurely and a huge row has broken out on stage. I look behind me to see Jay kicking the shit out of Gordon's drum kit. The bass drum is on its arse and the rest of it is taking a beating from Jay's boot. Gordon is now stood up, threatening to kick the fuck out of Jay. Fuck sakes, a proper fucking fight is kicking off on stage as the crowd looks on. Immediately everyone on stage takes sides. John leaps to Gordon's defence whilst Dave to that of his brother, Jay. I'm either a little tipsy or just seeing things, because I swear I see Dave kicking Gordon's kit too, and promptly have a huge go at him for it. Dave later proclaims his innocence. I must have been confused in the midst of the embarrassing fracas on stage I guess.

The situation is unsalvageable. Gordon and Jay have both stormed off stage, screaming at each other as they walk straight out the side door and into the private car park where Betty is resting. The rest of us pack up our gear whilst arguing amongst ourselves. John announces to the crowd “That's all folks” and we leave the scene, Gordon's drum kit looking beat up on stage, John surveying the damage. So much for being friends.

I head outside to find Gordon and Jay still at it. Gordon is pretty drunk to be fair. And when he's drunk, he can get emotional. He's threatening to kick the fuck out of Jay, a lot of finger pointing is going on, and he's telling everyone who wants to listen that he's quitting the band today. I try and listen to both sides of the story. To be honest, Jay is sober and puts over a compelling argument. He's telling me that he felt like a cunt playing up there with Gordon, who was playing like shit. It's not only that he was dropping beats, sticks and everything else, here there and everywhere, but to save face, he was acting like he didn't care. So we're all up on stage giving it everything and Gords is behind us, fucking around, pulling stupid faces and tickling his drum kit. Well Jay just saw red I guess.

The trouble with Gordon is that he has this self defence mechanism in him when he's drunk, where if he fucks up, instead of saying sorry and trying to rectify it, he just hams it up like he doesn't give a shit. And I know all too well, that he does give a shit. He gives a very big shit. He just tries to cover it up by acting like he doesn't. That's ok, but when he's sat there pulling stupid faces and starts giving up on the show, that's not so ok.

So, I'm outside in the middle of these two arguing and I'm starting to get a picture of what's happened. Gordon is still furious and storms off up to the flat, I chase him and have a go at him, pulling him back by his shoulder. As I do this, I accidentally grab a hold of his t-shirt, which creates a huge tear around the neck. I can't help but crack up laughing. Gordon, like a small drunken child shouts at me “You just ripped my fucking t-shirt Gaz!” He looks really upset, hurt almost. The whole thing is just getting too funny now. Gordon trudges off upstairs with the neck of his t-shirt hanging over his bare, left shoulder, close to tears. The rest of us, left behind in the car park, piss ourselves laughing.

Within five minutes, Gordon is back and by now he's almost laughing too. And so the argument dies down. Within a half hour everyone is back to being friends. Kind of..

So what did happen to not giving a fuck really? I guess Gordon took it a little too far. Or maybe we just did give a fuck after all. By the time I'm done with all the nonsense I head over to Lee at the merch table. He's just smirking at me and shaking his head. He's seen it all before. A few people in the crowd comment to me that that was quite an interesting show, although most people seemed to love it anyway.

The perception from the crowd is always different to that of the bands'. I remember watching Sebadoh at Reading Festival in '94. They got into a huge fight on stage after three songs and stormed off. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen at the time. I thought that Lou Barlow writing a letter of apology to their fans via NME a week later was really unnecessary, and couldn't understand what he was apologising about. I'd loved that show and him apologising for it almost ruined the experience for me.

Anyway, unexpectedly, I get paid by the promoter without so much as an enquiry as to what happened and why the set was cut so short. He was probably more relieved that his tight schedule was running ahead of time and the venue would be cleared in plenty of time for Gorgoroth.

We pack up the gear and put it back in the van. Everyone is back on speaking terms, although there is still a whiff of discontent in the air. Everyone agrees that yes, Gordon was acting the cunt, and yes Jay's actions were a little over the top and that yes, Jay would pay for the repairs to the kit. Everything being settled, I crack open a bottle of wine.

I end up getting pissed pretty quickly, now that I find myself relaxed. We've got the second record by The Sounds blasting out of the van, (which is our favourite tour "party" album), and in fitting with the soundtrack, we're having a bit of a car park party with some friends. I'm getting really drunk as the sun begins to sink in the sky, and when I start getting drunk, I start dancing. Before long I've kicked the wing-mirror clean off of Betty during an over enthusiastic dance move. I swear it was an accident but the day after, everyone else testifies that I took a running kick at the thing and booted it clean off. I don't remember it that way.

The rest of the band call it an evening pretty early, whilst Gordon and I head off to the pub with some friends to drink a few pints of Guinness. We stagger back to the van together after the pub closes, Gordon telling me that he still can't believe I ripped his t-shirt.

We get back to Betty in very good spirits. The rest of the guys are tucked up for the night in bed. I crank The Sounds record up full blast and before you know it, everyone is arguing again. 

Good times...

No. 5 - Leipzig

Something Speedhorn was always quiet inept at, was learning important lessons.

Every now and again, something major would happen that would stun us all into admitting that we have to change a certain aspect of our behaviour, but more often that not that lesson learned would soon be forgotten again. We had a hard time keeping the influence of booze at bay. Looking back at those times as a grown adult, I'm glad that, relieved that, nobody in the band suffered any lasting damage. I guess most people, upon maturing, can look back at their younger years and see the narrow escapes. I remember talking with Kev about this once. We came to the conclusion that everybody does stupid stuff when they're young. Some come through it unscathed, as a better person, some don't. I'm glad that we all did. There are kids I went to school with who didn't.

Speedhorn was never a band that was heavily into drugs. There were people who liked to smoke weed, people who liked to smoke a lot of weed, but there was never anybody who was into hard drugs. Our problem was that we drank too much. Being skint kids from Corby, the novelty of free booze never, ever got old. And almost the entire time we were presented with it, we drank it like it was the last booze we'd ever get our hands on.

Only a couple of months after our infamous show at the Hultsfred festival in Sweden, we were flying out to Germany, to Leipzig, to play the Full Force Festival, for a slot on the main stage in front of a crowd estimated to be around twenty thousand people. We flew out to the show the night before our slot, and checked into the hotel the festival had booked out for all the bands, around the time the sun was sinking into the horizon.

The hotel is in the middle of nowhere. I look out at the view from our room. It's desolate. There is a large empty field and somewhere in the distance the faint lights of factories are flickering, reminding me that there are still people out there who actually work for a living. Friday night in Leipzig looks like the hotel bar then...

We head down and find the guys from the band The Darkness sat chatting to the bartender. We join them for a few drinks. We met these guys at the Metal Hammer awards a few months ago, they were up for some “Best Newcomer Award” or something. We were there because our friend Dave was organising the event and he'd promised us free booze. We shared our bottle of Jagermeister with The Darkness guys that night and they dedicated the award they ended up winning to Speedhorn.

So it's good to see them and hang out. It's funny, but these guys go on to be huge! I'd seen them a couple of times when they were unknown and they were a lot of fun, unfortunately the joke wore thin very quick and the whole thing got really boring. I guess you know the story of the Darkness though...anyway, this was “back in the day”, before all the hype.

So we're hanging out in this hotel bar in the middle of this dark field on the outskirts of Leipzig, the night before the slot on the main stage. The drinks are flowing by the time it's eleven pm. For some reason though, I'm not really in the mood and decide to call it an early night. Frank and John seem to be having a great time as I bid them bon soir. The drinks are flying down. I don't know what it is, but I possess a slight ill-feeling towards the Darkness guys. They seem to be putting out a real rock star vibe, and Frank and John appear to be lapping it up, which for some reason irks me. I don't know why, but I don't want to be a part of it. Sometimes, I get myself in that mood. I guess it's like that when for some reason you find yourself unable to get drunk, and everyone you are with that has accomplished this feat suddenly starts getting on your nerves. Totally my own thing, and not anything anyone else is doing wrong. I just remember sitting there getting annoyed by the fact that Frank and John are sitting around with these wannabe rock star guys ordering a bottle of Jack Daniels.

It's probably more to do with the Jack Daniels than anything else. I fucking hate that drink and everything it stands for. I hate how idiots think they're “rock n' roll” if they walk around with a bottle of it in their hand.  Carrying it like around like some sort of statement.  I actually hate the idea of “rock n' roll”, Sex and drugs and rock and roll.  Motely Crue and all that pants. Fuck. Off. I was never in to songs about snorting coke and fucking women.  It's boring.

Anyhoo....

I leave the scene and head up to the room I'm sharing with Tony. I get showered before tucking into bed and turning on CNN. There is something really cosy about watching CNN in a foreign hotel room. I'm looking forward to the show tomorrow. With Full Force Festival. A classic on the festival scene. I've been wanting to play here for a long time.

We meet down in the lobby the next day for breakfast. Gordon tells me that the night before was a lot of fun. A load of other people in bands hung out and everybody went to bed really late, really drunk. I notice Frank and John haven't joined us for breaky. Gordon tells me they were pretty fucked up last night, as was Darren.

We sit down to breakfast with a good strong cup of coffee and Gordon fills me in on the night before. Although it sounded like a lot of fun and I'm kinda regretting missing out, I still feel good about the fact I'm feeling healthy this morning. Frank and John eventually come down and join us for breakfast, although they're looking pretty pale. Especially Frank. I laugh when I see his face and he just shakes his head.

A while later a festival shuttle bus comes and picks us up and we make our way to the site. It's about a twenty minute drive. I realise during the bus journey that we're actually way outside of Leipzig. It's a city I would have liked to have checked out. I had briefly entertained thoughts of making my way into the historical city last night, to check out what the place looked like, but that never came to be. Too bad. I'm really into the history of the old eastern block and World War II and it would have been fun to see the place. As is often the case though, the name of the city on the tour itinerary has little bearing on the location of the venue you're playing. You think you're playing this really cool city and then you turn up at a venue in an industrial estate somewhere..

As I'm thinking about this on the bumpy road to the festival site, I notice John is very quiet. He looks fucking ghostly. John hasn't always been the biggest drinker in the band. He usually likes a smoke, and that would be his preference if the choice has to be made. That said, when he's in the mood, he can put a shit load of booze away. He's a big boy and it takes a lot to knock him down. The flip-side to that is, if he's down, he's fucking staying down. If he's hungover then he's HUNGOVER! Big time. I once bore witness to John drinking his way through almost two bottles of Jagermeister after a show on his birthday. He crashed to the pavement outside of the hostel we were sleeping at. Obviously, we couldn't pick him up. He was sick everywhere. We had to entice him into the hostel, leading the way with a bucket as he crawled on his knees into the dormitory. It was hilarious. And the day after he was a mess. But I mean, he drank almost TWO bottles of Jagermeister. When he goes for it, he fucking goes for it.

I guess he went for it last night because he doesn't look good.

We pull into the backstage area at the festival site, but for some reason we don't get out. The driver guy is waiting for someone from the festival to come over. We're sat there in the van, it's pretty humid and John tells us he feels sick. He's got his forehead pressed up against the window, looking like he's in the void. We seem to wait in the van for ages, I don't really understand why we can't get out. John then spots some plastic festival toilets and without saying a word, opens the van doors and legs it over to them. We all laugh our tits off as John pukes his guts up in the bogs. Of course, Regan is being cocky as fuck, commenting on how people who can't handle their drink shouldn't do so.

The outlook for the show looks positive.

We go on stage and the crowd is big. It must be around fifteen thousand at least. We have a good slot on the main stage in the late afternoon. The sound on stage is good and the atmosphere from the crowd is great. I have to give credit to Frank and John..considering that they both looked like shite this morning and John was puking in the bog about an hour before the show, they're both giving it a lot of energy on stage. I look over at them and I'm quietly impressed with the pair of them. We're playing through the set, banging out the songs with maximum energy and it seems like the show is going to be a success.

To make things better, we have our new backdrop hanging proud and high behind Gordon. It looks fucking ace. It's this huge piece of material, with the artwork from the cover of the Dead Tomorrow album. We'd never really been a back drop band but our record label had decided they would shell out for one, stating that we needed one for these huge festival stages, now that we were at the level where we were performing on them. Whatever, it's their money.  Except, that it's not...you learn things the hard way.  Anyway, our first backdrop had been a rather pathetic effort. It was the image of the Speedhorn bull horns, white on black. The image itself was pretty cool, I liked the fact that it didn't have the band name, just this strong image. The trouble was that it was really small. Sure, it looked big on Roddy's living room floor, but as Roddy himself so gleefully pointed out, up on a huge festival stage it looked like a postage stamp. Roddy loved it when things went wrong. I think today though, even he, stood side stage, now guitar teching for us, would have been begrudgingly impressed with this backdrop.

So we're pulling this show off and I'm really psyched. Gordon is smashing the shit out of his kit, the sound on stage is booming, we're all going mad, the crowd is kicking the shit out of each other and then PUKE! Fuck. Me. John has just puked off the front of the stage. I can't quite work out if what that actually just happened. John kind of staggers back for a second, looking a bit stunned, before sort of shaking his head, wiping his gob with the back side of his arm and then continuing with the song. I steal glances at the rest of the band and realise that they're all grinning like Cheshire cats. Tony and Gordon looked particularly chuffed. Tony, being John's brother, loves seeing his sibling suffer. Gordon, being John's oldest friend, is exactly the same. We get to the end of the song and we're all cracking up. John comes over to my side of the stage...”Whoopsie daisy” he offers, in his usual joke Jock accent. I pat him on the back and we get on with the show.

Besides the obvious blip, the show is a success and a great credit to our two singers, who are ridiculously hungover, for putting on a strong show in the August heat. If it hadn't been for John sick dripping off the front of the stage, the crowd would have been none the wiser. We ring out the last song with a whirlwind of noise and exit the stage, pleased with the show. I walk across to the other side, past Tony's amp, offering applause and thanks to the crowd as I leave.

I'm greeted with a wonderful sight on  my way back to the dressing room/cabin.  Blocking my way to the ramp off the back of the stage, on his hands and knees, beside Tony's amp, is Frank. And he is puking. He looks piss poor. His eyes are streaming salty tears, his face is a shade of dark purple, and he's coughing, spluttering and puking. Upon seeing him I almost scream with joy. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You know, when you're laughing so hard that you're just kind of pointing and screaming?  It was like that. Frank continues to throw up. I don't think I have ever seen anyone produce this much vomit. It just keeps coming, flowing out of him. There is a huge yellow puddle of puke on the stage, kind of edging it's way back towards Tony's amp. We're all stood around, laughing our tits off and pointing at Frank. Nobody offers him help. What a great bunch of mates we really are. He must be there for a good five minutes. He looks like he's been hit by a bus. It must have hit him very suddenly, because he hasn't even had the sense to crawl out of view from the crowd. I notice people in the audience who have obviously spotted him and they're pissing themselves laughing too. Indeed, the only people who don't seem to find it funny are the local stage crew.

When Frank is eventually able to get back to his feet, he stumbles back to the dressing room. Not a single thought about clearing it up himself. To be fair, he's probably feeling so shit that thinking straight is completely out of the question. Doug tells me later that he had to row it out with the promoter for our money afterwards, who is claiming damages from us. Doug, thankfully for us, in his usual subtle way, persuades the guy to give us our fee.

As he's making his way back from the production office, back behind the stage area to our dressing room, he sees the local crew guys moping up Frank's puke with our backdrop and then throwing it off the ramp at the back of the stage into the mud below.  Even Doug thinks that's fair enough.

The last time I ever see that back drop is when we get back in the shuttle bus at the end of the night to head back to the hotel. It's just lying there in the mud, covered in Frank's puke. Nobody even suggests the idea of taking it with us.

I guess we're back to using the old postage stamp...

No. 6 - Gravesend

In ten years of existence, Speedhorn navigated itself through the complete spectrum of success and status.

We experienced about every aspect of touring life in a band, from living on a budget of five quid a day, sleeping in the van if there was no floor available, to travelling in a night-liner and flying all around the world with a crew of friends, to finally becoming a self-sufficient touring outfit, in our own van, where we took care everything ourselves.

We went from playing the worst venues the UK has to offer, to minuscule crowds, shows that barely paid us money for petrol, where food and drink was out of the question, to headlining shows in Japan and staying in classy hotels, to travelling and sleeping in our own made “tour bus” all over the continent, playing everything from large club venues to house shows.

We had management, major labels, even a monthly wage at the height of it all. At the twilight of our existence, when we more D.I.Y., we were still coming home from tour with money to pay the bills. In the beginning though, around about the time we played this show in Gravesend, we had such little money that we would take food from the bins at service stations when they closed. We'd figured out that the fast food joints at these places threw whatever food they had left at the end of the day. We'd simply pull up and wait out back for them to throw it.

We'd played the Red Lion in Gravesend on the previous tour to this one. That night we'd played on our own, and three people had paid to come in and watch us. I remember the guy who ran the place was a particularly dislikeable fellow. He was a typically rude cockney guy, who bragged about the fact he'd had Maiden play his place back in '79 or whatever and seemed to be still promoting his venue on the back of that. Although that was cool enough, it had absolutely no fucking bearing on our gig.

We were used to playing to nobody in those days and three people, plus our friend Waldie, was good enough for us. We didn't get food and certainly didn't get beer, but one of the guys who'd paid to come in had felt sorry for us and bought us a couple of rounds. In those days, booze was either scrounged or stolen.

So this time around, we're on tour with the bands Breakneck and Enmity It was about three months after the previous non-remarkable show at the Red Lion, in Gravesend. Fucking Gravesend? The name of the town alone should be warning enough to steer clear of the place...

The bass player from Enmity, Paul, who later went on to work for the Agency and become our booking agent, had told us at the show the night before, that he had no intention of playing the show in Gravesend, citing it as a complete waste of time. Although we knew it was most likely going to be pants, neither us or Breakneck wanted to cancel the show. We were on tour having fun together and what else were we going to do, go back to Corby for the day? Fuck that.

So we decide that we're going to Gravesend, Enmity tell us they'll meet up with us the day after at the show in Norwich or whatever...

We'd been touring the toilet scene in the UK on and off for about half a year, playing to crowds averaging ten to twenty people a night. We were doing this with the attitude that the ten people that did make the show would be blown away and then they'd spread the word, so when we come back a couple of months later, the ten people would have doubled to twenty people, and the time after that would be forty, and so on. And I was always proud of the fact that no matter how small the crowd, we played our asses off every single night. And for the most part, it worked.

I thought as we pulled up outside the Red Lion pub that our hard work at the previous show had paid off, in a huge way! We trundle out of the back of the van, the sun is shining and the bar room of the pub is packed with people. What's more, they're all donned in heavy metal clothing. I can't believe it. This is going to be the best show we've played in our so far short career. We're all chuffed and laughing at Paul and Enmity for fucking this show off.

We start loading in to the gig room, which is the room adjacent to the bar, where Maiden is waiting for us. We shake hands with him as he welcomes us once again to the venue that is his pride and joy. I remark that it looks promising for tonight, to which he replies that they're all watching the footy, but yeah, it should be good.

So we load in and get set up on stage, do a quick sound check and then go through to the bar. I'm hoping that with the already buzzing atmosphere in the place, the barman will offer us a drink. I've come to learn in the many years since, that such hospitality should never be expected in England, no matter what the size of the crowd. He tells us that he'll wait and see how many of the punters come through to the gig later on before he hands out any beer to us, although he promises me it should be good. Ok, typical. But hopefully we'll get a few beers later then...

We decide along with the Breakneck boys, to pool whatever change we have and get some booze. Between ten guys, we've got enough smash for a bottle of cheap vodka and a few cans of lager. I set off with one of the guys in search of a supermarket. The sky is turning grey by this now, and the sights of Gravesend dampen my spirits somewhat. It really is a fucking depressing place.

We get back to the venue and hang out for a while. We decide to leave the voddy for after the show since we don't want to get too fucked up. We sit in the van and drink a can of cheap pissy lager, hopeful for the night ahead. We head in to the venue when the last dregs of lager are finished off. The bar is still pretty packed with people and the landlord's wife is setting up a table by the entrance.

An hour passes and still nobody has ventured into the venue from the bar room next door. The landlord hasn't even bothered putting on any music, as way of setting a bit of atmosphere. It's soon time for Breakneck to start and still nobody has entered the building. The landlord is still in the bar next door, which is separated from the bar in the venue room by a wall with a door in it. The punters have to go out into the car park to come into the venue, but the bar staff can just drift between the rooms. The landlord's wife is sitting by the entrance, reading a book. Fuck sakes, I go in search of landlord guy and ask if Breakneck can go on a little later, when some people start coming through. He barely breaks his glance away from the footy on the tv, but assures me that once the punters hear the music they'll start coming in.

So Breakneck go on and the only spectators in attendance are the Speedhorn boys and Roddy, who is out driving us. They play through the entire set, somewhat light-heartedly. We have a good time watching them and Jacques, their singer, put on a good show as always. They play through, and we cheer them on, but still, not a soul from the bar has come through. It's fucking Saturday night for fuck sakes! What is wrong with people?

We all feel the need for a sip of the voddy now. It has dawned on us that this show is not going to be the best show we've ever played, but more likely the worst. The previous worst show had been here at the same venue, a few months ago, when those three people attended. It could be less than that tonight...

I speak to the landlord again. Of course, he hasn't offered us any beer yet, but he still remains confident people will come through. He tells me people aren't interested in the support band, they want to see us. Yeah right. What I don't get is that there is still no music of any form being played in the venue room, yet hard rock is blasting out of the juke box in the bar now that the footy is over...

We get up on stage and nobody has come in. I feel sick to the stomach. I actually feel more nervous for this show than any other, simply because I feel like a complete twat. The landlord has at least come through to the bar in here, and is stood there waiting to watch us. He's STILL saying people will come through.

The Breakneck boys are returning the favour of support and are the only people waiting for us to start playing, along with the landlord. We kick into the set, putting on the normal show. We get to the end of the first song and just let the feedback ring...still nobody in the venue. We carry on into the second song, still throwing ourselves about the stage but not masking our embarrassment quite as well. During the third song, when still not a single punter has come though, I notice the landlord, standing there with his arms folded, shaking his head at us. Before the song is over, he's walked back through to the bar room. By the forth song his wife is packing up the table and fucking off. I feel like a complete cunt. I'm sure Paul and the Enmity guys are in their local pub, pissing themselves laughing.

We get to the end of the forth song and Frank is talking to a crowd that's not there, as if this was a normal gig. I've had enough. We cut him off and ask him what he's doing. We all just look at each other and decide to pack the fucking gig up.

We get off stage and aim straight for the van and that bottle of Vodka! Frank is incensed, so are the rest of us. Nobody has the balls to go through and ask the landlord for petrol money though. We just drown our misery with the vodka. When the vodka starts taking it's effect on us, we actually start cracking up. We're by now, just hanging in the car park and listening to the new band Roddy has spontaneously started with Jamie from Breakneck.

They're on stage, Jamie on guitar, Roddy on vocals with Gordon on drums, they've called themselves Dog Meat, and are playing loud as fuck. They have one song, which I presume is titled, Frank is a Cunt, since that seems to be the only lyrics to the song.

The three of them are in there on their own, the landlord's wife is long gone, and we're out in the car park getting pissed, listening to the cacophony. It lasts a good thirty minutes and Roddy seems to be having the time of his life!

When it eventually dies down, and the voddy is gone, we pack up the gear and put it back in the van. We're in better spirits now, realising we've hit bottom and the only way is up. The landlord actually comes out and tells us that it was a shit gig. Fuck you, fuck you very much.

We never, ever go back to the Red Lion, or Gravesend again.

No. 7 - Osaka

This show was shit.  No doubt about that.  We played like a bunch of cunts...in front of a crowd of twenty thousand.

As is often the case on this list, the forty minutes or so on stage were affected enormously by the dire mess that was surrounding it at the time. The circumstances surrounding this show meant that it never had a chance of being anything other than a complete failure. Bad timing though that it happened at the Summer Sonic Festival in Osaka, a show we'd travelled thousands of miles to play.

It was a time in our career when our future was viciously spinning out of our control. And we were blaming everyone but ourselves for the web of bullshit we were slowly becoming entangled in. We'd had a hard time with our label during the recording of the second album. We'd had a worse time with the guy running our management company. Our solution, was to start firing everybody around us. I've heard it from so many bands over the years since...when things start going wrong, fire everybody. We were the same then.

As I've mentioned before, parting with our management company meant parting with the two people who had helped make the band what it was. There was no other way around it. It was a dark time.

Once we'd parted with the management, our next step was to start working our way out of the record contract we were in. We'd employed a new manager, a woman, who's first job was to get us away from the record label.

I feel bad about it now. If the truth is told, we used her to help us get away from the label and that is that. Of course, she got paid, but she had plans for a future together and we didn't. As soon as we were free of the label it became pretty obvious that things weren't going to work out for us as a partnership. It was a total clash of personalities. She tried to reign in our behaviour, tried to cut out some of the nonsense that often surrounded us. She was pretty straight and we were anything but. She would never be able to get her head around the constant in-band fighting for one thing. Or the fact that we liked to drink as much as we did. The thing is, that was the formula that worked for that particular group of people. It was the fire in us that made us what we were.

Things changed over the years, but it was a natural change. We grew up in time, members changed as did certain attitudes. Maybe if she'd managed the band a few years later she would have coped a little better with it. Or maybe not. Even at the end, when were tighter than ever, we still fought from time to time. That's just how it was. We were always a fine balance of love and hate.

The relationship between Speedhorn and our female manager only lasted six months. She'd gotten us away from our deal and our old management company and we'd played a few shows under her stewardship and then we were ready to part ways with her. Our constant battling with everyone and everything stressed her out to the maximum.

There had been an incident at an all ages show in Dublin where we'd gotten into a battle with the bouncers, who were kicking the shit out of kids that were moshing during the show. As soon as anyone started moving in the crowd, these big, thick, fucking Nazi bouncers were picking these kids up and manhandling them before kicking them out into the street. We were enraged by it. The scene got ugly when we took action against them. The whole thing caused a big stink and we ended up being banned from Ireland, according to the promoter. The whole thing was pathetic. But instead of wanting to hear our side of events, our manager had a huge go at us and told us we had to sack our tour manager. Our relationship with her was affectively over after that. We couldn't accept having a manager who wasn't on our side. She was naïve to try and come between the band and Doug. We were a tight group that had been through a lot together, and Doug had long been a part of that.

So, having decided her fate, and being the wankers we were, we had to find a way of making her split up with us. We were typical fucking guys...

We were going to Japan for a week to play the Summer Sonic Festival, which was two shows, one in Osaka and one in Tokyo. Two shows, five days. Beautiful. Only that, our manager insisted on coming along with us. She didn't trust Doug to do his job any longer. What the fuck? She insisted that she was paying her own ticket, but I seriously doubted it. I think she knew our time together was doomed and she wanted a holiday out of us. To be fair, we owed her that much.

We flew out there with the objective of making her quit her job. It took one night.

We all got hammered on the flight over. She spent the entire flight threatening to dock money from our p.d.'s, but we just laughed at her. The flight crew were even threatening us at one point. We were being complete assholes, if the truth is told. Doug, our trusty tour manager, just sat on the plane, smirking to himself the entire journey. We were determined to drink ourselves stupid and show her what managing our band truly entailed.

We get to the hotel in Osaka fourteen hours later and the vibes are pretty bad. She tells us that we have to stay awake for a few hours, explaining to us how jet lag works. She didn't get how condescending she was. She told us, TOLD us, that we were banned from drinking for the rest of the night, since we had to be in good shape for the important show the day after. We laughed at her, checked our bags into the hotel and ourselves into the bar. Flabbergasted, she stormed off to her room in a huff.

A couple of hours later, she appears back in the bar, obviously with a new tactic in mind. She's going to get back on side with us and join us for a drink, trying to keep the situation contained from the inside. We invite her to join us, suspicious of her motives. Her plan backfired.

About six hours later, we're in our favourite bar in Osaka and we're all fucking boats! Her included.

Everything gets extremely fuzzy, but I remember her and Tony getting into an argument, the two of them shoving each other, her being so fucked she falls on her ass, us pissing ourselves laughing and then mocking her all the way back to the hotel. Tony is enraged by their earlier argument and is randomly shouting insults at her. I remember the faint pangs of guilt setting in, but say nothing. I know the band has to stick together through this shit.

It was six in the morning before the first of us went to bed. Tony and Frank were in particularly bad shape, although the rest of us weren't much better. We were playing on the main stage at two in the afternoon.

When we converge in the hotel lobby about five hours later, she's refusing to speak to us. In fact, she refuses to even travel with us to the festival site. So the band, Doug and our worried looking record company contact, Yoko, get into a van and head to the show. Frank and Gordon sit there, starting out of the window, looking like a pair of ghosts. My stomach is doing flips at every bump in the road.

Question: How the fuck are we going to pull this off? Answer: We're not.

It's two in the afternoon, it's over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, there are twenty thousand people waiting for us to go on stage, and Frank is being sick in the toilet. Our manager appears, making one last attempt at appeasing the situation between us. She's running around, all of a sudden acting like nothing happened the night before. In essence, not much really did, but we're taking the opportunity to blow up even the smallest argument into something big. We take no offer of help from her. Even though we're all hungover to piss and the sun is brutally glaring down on us, we tell the Japanese festival crew that we don't want a fan on the side of the stage, simply because we heard she'd demanded one for us.

As we walk on stage, she wishes us good luck. Gordon tells her to fuck off and we all crack up laughing. We really were a complete bunch of wankers.

The show of course, is beyond lame. After a couple of songs, most of us are about ready to throw up. There is hardly any movement whatsoever, we all just stand there, jaded, strumming through the songs. I remember at one point, starting Scaramanga, and Gordon completely forgets what comes after the intro, so just continues hitting his cymbals without going into the beat. He's just stuck, looking at me, completely bemused, shaking his head, lost. We make it to about half way through the song before realising that we're all playing different riffs. We're all at different stages of the song, which is bumbling along at about half it's actual pace anyway. We give up and the song collapses. It's a fucking mess.

Hate Song isn't much better. Gordon goes into the first chorus way too early and before I know what's going on, we're all playing different parts of the song again. I mean, it's two riffs, verse/chorus, verse/chorus. It's not exactly complicated. The song shamefully drags itself to the end...just about.

Tony starts the intro to Iron Cobra literally three times too slow and the song agonisingly trudges along like a psalm at a funeral.  It's painful, since this show is fast becoming just that for us, a fucking funeral!

We are literally playing like a bag of stinking shit. It's so fucking hot on stage, and I'm trying to keep the sick down. As are the rest of the band. Of the six hundred odd shows we played, this has to go down as the least energy ever produced on stage by us. Our manager is looking over at us from the side of the stage, sunglasses on, pale faced and shaking her head. I'm wondering who the fuck this person is, and how she is involved with our band. Although I know today we're letting ourselves down badly. Even the usually insane Japanese crowd is having a hard time convincing us with their polite applause between songs.

The eternally smiling Yoko, who works for our label in Japan, is trying her best to keep our spirits aloft with the odd thumbs up from the side of the stage, but that just makes it worse. I'm just dying to get to the end of the set and get off stage.

Before we leave though, we have one last humiliation in store.

Since we're playing in Japan, and when playing a big festival there you can generally ask for whatever equipment you want and the promoter will organise it for you, we have a gong on stage today. It sits proudly behind Gordon, just waiting to be smashed. We'd sampled a gong at the end of Heartbreaker on the last album. We'd never used a gong on stage before and we'd decided to take advantage of the fact we were playing a festival in Japan and incorporate it into the set. Of course, we'd never actually tried one out in rehearsal or anything...

We finish the set with Heartbreaker, with the intention of having Gordon smashing the shit out of the gong as a dramatic end to the set. Of course, this would have been way cooler had we played a normal, high energy show, and not fumbled our way through every song like a gang of pissed pensioners. I'm almost hoping by the time we get to the end of a lacklustre Heartbreaker, that Gords will just leave it alone and we can get off. But he actually grabs the gong beater as we hit the last note of the song. It's just a no win situation by this point. If he goes mad on the thing, then it's going to look ridiculous since the rest of the set was absolute piss. And if he hits it lamely it's going to be fucking Spinal Tap.

As it happens, he just stands there up on the platform with the gong, fluffy beater in hand, looking confused. We're standing there, feebacking, waiting to see what he's going to do, and I'm silently imploring him to hit the gong. I want to get off stage. He just continues to stand there for all to see with a daft smirk on his face. “What. Are. You. Doing?”, the words pounding in my head.

When he eventually goes to work on the gong it's just embarrassing. He's barely tickling the thing. I can't even hear it as he brushes the beater against the golden bronze of the gong. And now I look at it, I realise it's not even that big. Kind of small and silly looking really. It's just a pathetic end to a pathetic gig.

We walk off stage and nobody is happy. Our manager says nothing. Doug tells us it was shite. Some members of the band try to save face and say they don't give a fuck, that it's only one show, but I'm fucking disappointed in us. We travel all the way to Japan to play a show to thousands of people, just to look like a bunch of cunts. It's not on. I know it, everyone knows it. I apologise to the promoter and our label, who do their best to sound convincing when they tell me it wasn't that bad. Their kindness does nothing to appease me.

We have a sit down after the show and we realise we have to sort our shit out. I don't think our manager talks to us for the rest of the week. We ask her to stay away from the Tokyo show and she goes as far to change her seat on the flight back, so she doesn't have to deal with seeing us. We get home and that's the end of that. I actually never see her or hear from her again. Mission accomplished, but we'd paid for it. The Tokyo show was incredible and went some way to making up for Osaka, but the atmosphere during the trip was hardly golden.

I feel bad now, thinking about how we treated Lisa. She meant well, but she just didn't have a clue how to manage us and she had bitten of more than she could chew by taking us on. The longer we continued together, in the knowledge that things weren't right, the worse things got, although we hardly be accused of handling the situation well.

When did we ever do that though?  Rarely...if the truth is told.

No. 8 - Hultsfred

It was the summer of 2003 and we were almost a year into touring our second album, We Will Be Dead Tomorrow.

A lot had changed in the couple of years since the release of the first record. I'd moved to Sweden, which had caused great concern amongst certain band members at the time. Frank and his girlfriend Claire, had conceived a son, which had also caused certain band members a great deal of concern at the time...

Above all that, a greater change, a far more pressing development, was in a very delicate process during this period in our lives. We were growing up as a band and as people and a direct result of that was a new-found curiosity about how exactly the band was being run by our management company. After growing suspicious that the guy running our management company was putting more of our money up his nose than into our bank account, we decided it was time to start taking our band more seriously.

I suspect the fact that we were somewhat forced to get our act together off the stage and start taking care of “business”, had a profound affect on our act on stage. The more serious we became off stage, the less serious we became on it. I think they call it escapism... At times our shows descended into the lowly depths of cabaret...

We were all frustrated. The second album's recording sessions took place in the epicentre of a dark, turbulent period for the band. We wanted to get rid of our manager, who we simply no longer trusted. Except it wasn't simple... The two people who had done more for our band than anyone else would ever have done, two people who were family to us, worked for that very company. It was complicated to say the least. We wanted away from the company, and we wanted to take our friends with us. But they couldn't leave, and we had to. And it broke our hearts. It actually broke the band beyond the point where it could ever be fully repaired. It took the best part of a year to piece together the recordings for the album, which took the wind out of our sails completely. The good ship Speedhorn almost sank..

So with all this going on behind the scenes, and with various members of the band spreading their wings and leaving the nest that was Corby, it maybe wasn't surprising that when we were actually gathered together again to get on with what we were supposed to be doing, namely playing our music live, we determined ourselves to enjoy it to the hilt.

And for us that meant one thing. Getting pissed.

We were playing a bunch of festivals during the summer of 2003, Hultsfred, Sweden, being the first of them. I'd officially moved to Stockholm (moved my records) the summer before, so I was travelling without the rest of the guys in the band to this festival. Since we were playing on the last day I had decided to travel down early with Jen and a gang of mates from Stockholm and hang out for the whole weekend. I'd even decided to get as far into the spirit as to camp out in the festival camp site. I hadn't been to a festival just to hang out for about five years, since Reading '98. I was sure it was going to be a great laugh. I regretted my decision as soon as I lay down in the tent to sleep that first night. The realisation hit me, like a punch in the chops, that camping in a tent at a music festival is actually fucking bollocks...

Despite the naïve choice of sleeping arrangements, we had a fun weekend hanging out with everyone, watching some bands and drinking beer in the sun. By the time the Saturday came round, the day we were playing, I was buzzing. I was really looking forward to this show. And more than that, I was really looking forward to seeing the boys. It had been a while since we'd last been together, and dare I say it, I was missing them.

The guys were flying into the show on a very early flight from London. They had to leave Corby at something like four in the morning to catch a flight at six-thirty. Then upon arrival in Sweden, they were being transported on a festival shuttle bus, which was going to take another couple of hours. I was certain that they were going to arrive in a stinking mood.

It was to my great surprise then, to see Frank jump out of the bus with a huge smile on his face upon arrival at the backstage area. He lumbered over to me and gave me a big bear hug. The rest of the guys followed behind him, all chirping like robins. Not to sound like a sceptic, but I was relieved, if not a little shocked by their cheerful disposition.

It was noon when they arrived and we were playing on the indoor stage at six in the evening. Perfect time of the day to play. The evening would just be rolling in, we'd play our set and then have the night ahead of us to party.

We hung out in the porta-cabin that was our dressing room, catching up on things. We'd seen each other as recently as a few weeks earlier, but for a group of guys used to living in each other's pockets, week in, week out, that felt like a long time. It was good to be with the boys again.

I was the first to leave Corby, though Gordon wasn't far behind me, moving to Cardiff with his girlfriend, Katy. It's only natural when you get the chance to travel the world, that your eyes get opened a little, and you realise there is so much out there, just waiting to be seen, and that you can't spend the rest of your life living in Corby. That was the conclusion that Gordon and I reached anyway. But as the cliché goes, you can take the boy out of Corby but you can't take Corby out of the boy, and when we converged, it was if nothing had really ever changed.

So we're there hanging out, looking forward to a summer of playing festivals, getting on with the real business of playing shows again, and everyone is in positive mood. So much so in fact, that we decide we'll crack open a beer. It's around twelve thirty pm.

I'm not quite sure how, but by the time the clock on the cabin wall reads three-thirty pm, we've drank the entire rider. That's two crates of beer, a bottle of red wine and a bottle of Jim Beam, between the six of us.. with a little help from my wife. Roddy (best mate/guitar tech), and Doug (best mate/tour manager) are with us and Roddy is pissed off that we've left him nothing for after the show. I still don't know how it happened, I guess we just got carried away. It's not until Roddy throws a strop and storms out of the cabin that I even realise how much we've drunk. Oops...

As fate would have it, the guy who is one of the main promoters for the festival, pops his head in through the door to shortly after, to say hello. He's a really nice guy. We'd first met him six months earlier. We played a short tour of Sweden, one of the shows being a club in Hultsfred, which the promoter guy booked. The show had gone really well and we'd hung out afterwards. He'd asked us there and then if we'd like to play the festival.

He chats for a while, then wishes us good luck for the show and leaves, looking slightly bemused by our boisterous spirit. What happens next is absolutely typical of our band, Raging Speedhorn.

One of the festival runners, a young, innocent looking chap, who's job it is to look after the after the bands whilst they are in the backstage area, pops his head into to the cabin to check we're ok. We tell him we're more than chuffed. He looks over at the table where the rider had once been and then says, “Oh shit, sorry, you guys haven't had your rider yet? I'll go get it for you guys!”

We look at each other in delirious astonishment. Either the guy is blind, incredibly kind or just plain naïve. Either way, he turns up with the rider again...

Fuck me. By the time we go on stage, two hours later, we're all fucking steam boats! I'm at least at a level where I can still fumble my way through a set, albeit unconvincingly, but Frank is off his fucking tits...

I've got my friends from Stockholm in the audience, most of whom have never seen a Speedhorn show before. I've got Jen and some of the girls from Misdemeanor hanging out side stage, as well as a bunch of people I know in the Swedish music press reviewing the gig. My friend, Jenny Walroth, who works for a record label, has told me that she's convinced a good friend of hers who works for a national newspaper, to watch the show and review it.

I remember looking over to Jen as we stumble on stage. And then at Doug and Roddy. I catch a glimpse of my friends Emil and Erik in the crowd. They all seem to be grinning. The wooden indoor stage, that looks like a giant bandstand, is packed out with a couple of thousand people, and the sun is shining brightly through the gaps above the sea of heads in front of us. When Frank walks on with a couple of bottles of red wine in his hand, and calls everyone in the crowd cunts, I know this is going to be an interesting show.

Before we even kick off, Frank notifies the crowd as to who we are and that we don't give a fuck. He tells them they can come up on stage and fight us, and if they want to, they can throw bottles of piss at us, although I'm not sure why. Before we even start, we're a shambles.

We get through the first few songs unscathed. I wouldn't exactly say we're tight, but we're doing ok. Then at some point during the fourth song I lose Frank in my monitor. He's totally disappeared. I shout over at the monitor guy telling him the score. The monitor guy doesn’t look impressed as he points a stern finger at Frank. I look over to see Frank, eyes closed, screaming as hard as he can. He's totally feeling it. It's just that he's screaming into his empty bottle of wine instead of his microphone. The daft cunt hasn't even noticed. John spots the problem, shakes his head at me and kicks Frank up the arse.

At least the crowd seem to be in to it. The atmosphere is really pretty electric, despite the nonsense being presented to them.

We plough on...

Another couple of songs go by before I notice Doug, side stage, having a bit of a row with our friend, the promoter. Unbeknownst to me, Frank has drank the remaining contents of the two bottles of wine he had on stage and dispersed of them by throwing them as hard as he can, directly into the crowd. I had wondered why random objects had started to land with venomous velocity on stage. It seems the crowd are giving as good as they're getting. Still, the mood hasn't darkened at all. The crowd, if anything, seem to be loving it. I hear Doug shouting to Tony between songs that we have to reign Frank in or get pulled off the stage, by order of the festival.

Frank doesn't seem to give the slightest piss. He hasn't got any bottles left but he's swinging his microphone around on stage like a helicopter propeller whilst John sings his parts.

We're between songs, tuning up and by now I'm desperately guzzling water. The stage is hot and it's taking it toll. If it wasn't for the fact I was sharing a stage with Regan I'd happily admit to being pretty drunk, but compared to him I'm as sober as a judge. We're getting towards the end of the set and I'm starting to think about the finish line. I'm about to start the penultimate song when Frank tells me to wait up. He's laughing his ass off as he announces to the crowd that this next song goes out to Tony's bump. Confused, I look over to see Jen and Doug, along with a few other people, pissing themselves laughing. And then I notice poor Tony...

He literally has the biggest lump I have ever seen, just off centre at the top if his forehead. It's the size of a fucking golf ball. It looks like something from a cartoon. It's bright red and I swear I can almost see it throbbing. Tony is doing his utmost best to laugh it off, but it looks like he's about to faint. At some point during the last song, Frank's mike has come down from a great height, at full speed, and smacked Tony in the head. I can't even imagine how sore that would be. To his credit he makes it through the last two songs, which is quite incredible really. It must piss him off though, to see Frank stumbling around the stage for the majority of those songs, laughing his head off whilst pointing out Tony's lump to various members of the band.

We finally stagger off stage. On the way back to the dressing room I pass the promoter having it out with Doug, screaming about how we're never playing Hultsfred again. Doug is doing his best to calm him down, the whole time trying to conceal the smirk on his face. I get back to the dressing room. Tony is bent over a sink, rabidly splashing water on his ridiculous looking bump.

My friend Jenny later tells me that her journalist friend has simply asked her after the show, just how she imagined he could write a review? He said that it was more like watching a gang of football hooligans on stage fighting, than a band playing a gig. She told him just to write that...

The performance has since gone down in history as a most infamous performance. It was voted by Close Up Magazine as one of the top three concerts of the year. Ridiculous really... My friends still bring it into conversation at parties when ever we get talking about gigs.

Although we laughed about it at the time, we soon realised that our behaviour wasn't totally acceptable that day. We apologised to the festival organisers. I never heard if they replied.

A couple of weeks later we played an amazing show at Roskilde in front of a similar sized crowd, although this time we were on at one pm. and Doug had banned us from drinking before the show. In the space of those two weeks, we played two of the best shows of our career, each for very differing reasons...

No. 9 - Los Angeles

Number nine on the list is a show from Los Angeles, at a venue called the Key Club.

This show is really a representative for a group of other shows that we played in the United States in early 2005. We were on a package tour that was being headlined by the Egyptian themed death metal band, Nile. Yeah...I know. We'd chosen to accept the tour offer because in truth, we knew that a chance of travelling around the United States might never come our way again, and it was an offer we just couldn't refuse. Even if, as usual, it would mean playing on a bill where we fit like a square peg in a round hole.

Speedhorn had been through an extremely turbulent period in the year leading up to the third album being released. Tony had left after touring was completed for the We Will Be Dead Tomorrow record and then Frank, after threatening to do so for the best part of two years, finally quit the band. Although it was on the eve of our first tour for the How The Great Have Fallen album, we accepted his resignation willingly. Having someone constantly threatening to leave the band had weighed us down for too long. We needed to move forward.

Jay had replaced Tony on guitar in early 2004 and had been a part of writing the new record, although he had hardly played a show with us due to the long absence from the road between albums two and three. In extreme contrast, Bloody Kev had arrived in the band to a baptism of fire. He'd rehearsed with us twice, at the very last minute, before we went out on a headlining tour of the UK. We weren't even sure at the time if he wanted to play in the band permanently. Cancelling the tour was simply not an option, and Kev had saved the day. As it happens, the final show of that tour was the Download Festival at Donnington, and would go down in our own personal history as one of the band's greatest ever shows. After that, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Kev was staying.

Unfortunately the wave of excitement that followed the Donnington show crested out on to the beach, and the next wave didn't follow it as boldly. I had hoped that from there on we'd be back out on the road, with a new album and the support of a new record label, getting back to work as we had for the first two albums, but it just didn't work out that way. We played a couple of other festivals in Europe during the summer, but not much else happened. We soon learned that a year away from the hype, is a long, long time...

The remainder of the year would see only one short spate of shows in the UK, sometime during the late autumn. So when the chance came along to travel the entire USA on a tour that would span five weeks, we didn't need too long to debate it. So what if it was supporting Nile? We were going to the US of fucking A!

We'd arrived in Houston for the first show with a renewed energy and enthusiasm flowing through the veins of the band. Everybody was getting on with each other for the first time in years it seemed, the new album was going to be the first official release in the States, and we were travelling the entire country in the back of a Winnebago. What the fuck more could you ask for?

Well, it soon became obvious, from the evidence of the first night in Houston, that these shows were going to take some work. The crowds were big, at the very least four hundred a night, sometimes a lot more. The trouble was, the majority of the shows, especially the larger cities, were attended almost entirely by staunch death metal fans. Raging Speedhorn was definitely not a death metal band...

These death metal scenesters, like the bands they adored on stage, were serious types. Not that we weren't serious about our music. If there's one thing we were serious about, it was our music. Always. But we came from a completely different background to these guys. They were all unbelievable musicians who played fast and technically and made a big deal of trying to sound angry. We couldn't play for shit, if the truth is told. Well, not like those guys anyway. Our roots were in punk and hardcore, where nobody gives a shit about being able to play a sweep scale on a guitar. We just didn't give a fuck about that stuff. But the death metal guys were so concerned with the technical side of their show that they didn't seem to realise just how fucking boring their show was to watch. It was more like to going to a fucking guitar seminar than a gig.

Of course, the people in the audience loved it.

Thankfully for us, we had some allies on the tour, in the form of Soilent Green. We'd met up with them a while before at a festival in Japan and had got on spiffingly with them. Although these guys played a lot of blast beat stuff, they mixed it up seamlessly with elements of punk and Sabbath-esque riffs. And as technically gifted as they all were, they still kicked the shit out of the audience every night. We became good friends with them as the tour progressed. They were the only people on tour with us who seemed to get us.

The band line up on the tour was as follows: Without Passion, Decapitated, Speedhorn, Soilent Green, Hypocrisy and then Nile.

We were quite generously placed as third on the bill. I retrospect, playing after the very talented and very popular Decapitated only served to make our job twice as hard. Without Passion were more of a mathcore type band, and their singer looked cool, so everybody hated them. We liked them, they were good guys. Then Decapitated went on. In truth, if they been on tour as sole support to Nile, they would have blown them off stage every night. Although, that kind of technical death metal isn't really my thing, Decapitated are a fucking good band.

So then we would go on stage.

In all seriousness, not every gig was an uphill battle. We had some great shows, San Antonio and Sacramento spring to mind in particular, and New York City was one of the best US shows we ever played. But for the most part, we had the crowd on our backs before we even played a note. We could gage how bad our show was going to be, by how good Decapitated's was. If the crowd cheered and whooped and gave the metal horns every time Decapitated played a guitar or drum solo, then we knew we were doomed...

Of course, we were never in the habit of making things easier for ourselves. We'd nonchalantly walk on stage, hungover to piss and looking at the members of the crowd with nothing but contempt. It was a kind of pro-active defence. We'd look completely disinterested in being there as we tuned up our guitars in silence, and then we'd blast suddenly into the set, going fucking wild in the process. The crowd just didn't get it. They had obviously weighed us up with one look and presumed we were some boy band, what with our tight clothes and our short(er) hair. It just didn't match the music we played or the way we performed it. It was almost that, once the surprise had subsided, they grew only more agitated with us. They hated the fact that we were a really heavy band, playing with an energy and determination on stage that was bordering on violent. Self inflicted injuries during gigs were common place with us. The danger of being hit in the face with a guitar, or a microphone, or John's fist, was very real...

Kev and Jay were always at it. One night Jay would accidentally catch Kev in the head with his guitar, the next night Kev would “accidentally” catch his microphone lead around Jay's throat in a strangling motion.

The more the crowd were agitated, the more we did to wind them up. It was us against them and that's just how we liked it. So even though these gigs were what you would call hard work, they were also a lot of fun. From our point of view at least...

It was quite obvious after a week or so on the road, that the Nile guys didn't really get us either.

Luckily for us, their stage manager loved us. We were nothing but professional and polite when it came to dealing with him. He had the job of making sure that the six band bill ran on schedule. He was used to dealing with big bands with big egos. So he was no doubt delighted to meet us guys. I remember the first time of many, when he came to us before we went on stage, apologising in advance, but asking if we could possibly cut our twenty-five minute set down by a song or two. He was shocked when we gleefully told him that it wasn't a problem, that we could cut it down to fifteen minutes if he wanted. After that night, he took a big shine to us, and he, along with the Nile tour manager, regularly supplied us with booze.

Like I say the show in Los Angeles represents a number of gigs on that tour that could have easily filled the number nine spot on my list.

The show in Chicago for example, were one audience member who was stood right up front in the centre of the stage, turned his back on us before we started the first song, and flipped us off for the entire show. He literally held his arm aloft, erect and proud for twenty-five minutes.

The show in Denver, where we were spat on and had empty beer bottles thrown at us from a bunch of “hard-nuts” hidden in the shadows of the balcony, could have easily have made the list. As could the show in San Francisco, were various members of the public shouted “Wankers!” at us, followed by, “Fuck off back to England!”, again, before we'd even started.

The show in Los Angeles has, for reasons more comical, the slightest of edges over those other gigs though.

We'd played the Key Club a couple of years before and it had been a good show. For that reason alone, I'd allowed myself into thinking that the crowd this night would be good for us. Of course, I was wrong. When we'd played here previously, it wasn't on a predominantly death metal bill. In a place the size of Los Angeles, where there are shows happening all over the city every night, no hardcore kid is going to pay thirty dollars to see one band they like, play for twenty-five minutes.

We walk on stage to the familiar look of mass disapproval from the audience. Grins start to appear on faces, peeking menacingly through long curtains of greasy black hair. We burst into Hate Song, by no means accidentally starting the set with John screaming the words, “I hate you all!” We're going full out on stage, but our epileptic fit-like performance is going down like a fart at a funeral.

We're about half way through the show when I notice a guy down the front, right in front of Kev and John, laughing his head off. It's not a fake laugh designed to mock us either. It appears quite genuine. The cunt is almost slapping his thighs in bellyaching laughter. He's got one hand on his forehead and the other hand is pointing at us, and the fucker is pissing himself. It's like, he truly can't believe what he's witnessing.

I can see John is getting annoyed with him, but Kev seems to be a bit tickled, as am I. We play into the next song, and by now this guy has taken a pen and a piece of paper from somewhere and is writing furiously. When he's done, he proudly holds aloft the paper in the air to show us. He's made a sign that simply reads, “GAY” on it. Kev gives him a big thumbs-up. Happy with this, he pulls out another piece of paper and starts scribbling again. This time he's drawn an arrow and he's pointing it at Jay. Now Kev is starting to love this..

Throughout the rest of the show, the guy writes note upon note, all the while giving them to Kev. “Your guitarist wears very tight t-shits”. “Your band is very gay.” “You're band is a joke.” They just keep coming. The guy never tires of it. Either does Kev. It seems to make his night, especially since the majority of the guy's notes seem to be intended for Jay. Just before we play the last song, Kev sincerely dedicates it to Mr. Joker down the front. We play through it and as we're putting our guitars down and heading off stage I see the guy has his arm around Kev's head and is shouting something into his ear. At first I wonder if it's a fight kicking off, but I notice Kev smiling before shaking his hand and leaving the stage.

I asked Kev afterwards what the guy had said to him. He told me that the guy, in all sincerity, asked him to pass on a message to the rest of the band. “I think your band is absolutely shit but I genuinely respect you guys for having a good sense of humour and not jumping me.”

What the fuck can you do but laugh? It's either that or get in a fight. Some nights it goes one way, some nights it goes the other...there were rumours that the guy who flipped us off in Chicago eventually got Kev's foot in the back of his head...I'm not sure if that's true though.