The gig of DOOM

Whatever you do, whether it's playing music or fixing boat motors, you have a mental list of all the things can go wrong, and last night everything went wrong!
It's hard to know where to begin... Our driver had to work, thus leaving us without a way of getting there, and our back-up driver's car broke down! (See, we even have a back up driver – which just goes to show that, when God hates you, all your meticulous organisation counts for nothing!).
Andy and Jex ended up getting the train down and booking a hotel for the night, leaving Rosh and I (only a little bit illegally...) squashed into the back of the van with all the equipment.
But after three hours of cramp and trying to paint our nails on the motorway, we arrived in Leicester, the city of dreams.
We soundchecked, everything was okay – apart from my mic misbehaving as usual. I think I must be unusually electro-magnetically charged as I seem to generate more feedback than normal people, simply by my presence. The only point where my mic starts working is the point where I can no longer hear myself, but, you know, I'll blag it... it'll be fine.
By half eleven the revelers were in, all four of them, and we started playing. During the course of events, the strap fell off Andy's guitar, then the lead fell out, whilst I became somewhat entangled in my mic lead, as it curled itself around my wireless pack and the buckles on my boots.
I dropped a drumstick, which I do all the time, but whilst reaching for the spare (organisation!) I knocked my very expensive radio mic and sent it crashing to the ground – yet again! And shortly after one of the legs on my flour tom buckled and the whole drum collapsed, relying only upon the support of a monitor to keep it upright.
I'd heard some of the bodies that frequent this place were New Model Army fans, so we had been worried that our cover of Vagabonds would inspire a stage invasion and a fight to the death, but surveying the tumble weed on the dancefloor, I felt confident that, should such an eventuality occur, we'd probably be alright.
My in-ear monitor,to use the technical term, spazzed out at the beginning of Totality, so I fucked up the intro a bit. Oh yeah, and the mixer's falling to bits so we had to use our “Stupid Robot” with a microphone, which nobody could really hear.
By the time we played our barnstorming (What a ridiculous word!) version of Apop's Non-Stop Violence, the laptop (more technical words here) royally fucked up, so whilst Andy ran to wave his sonic screwdriver at it (or whatever computery people do) I was left with the frontman's nightmare – silence! And people staring at you expectantly. Thank God there were only four of them...
Oh yeah, and at this point the guitar fell over and knocked itself out of tune.
But every cloud has a silver lining, and we did get some kettle chips and hummus. The feast of the rock star.
That said, everyone that was there had a great time, and we made some new friends (and possibly invented a new drink – which reminds me, where did my expensive bottle of port get to!?), so after a few hugs and signing a few CDs with eyeliner (Because we're GOTH / Couldn't find a marker pen – delete as appropriate.) we leapt back into the van for another three hours pretending to be an amp. Except Andy, who remained to party and reform an impromptu DJ set. That McBain...
So if you're in or around Leicester – go to Synthetica, because the organisers are great. (But don't go thinking you'll get hummus too – we worked for it, we had a banner and everything...)
Also – now all the technical/physical/emotional failure is out of the way for the time being, our gig at Persecution in Stockton should be flawless, so come and see us! And if all else fails, we still have that banner....