After various messages left on my answer phone I finally got the opportunity to reply at 10.30 on Thursday evening. We'd been offered a gig on Friday at a place normally thought of as a blues venue. I'd hardly seen Sarah all week, and with a couple of gigs to come as well as football and her parents evenings the following week didn't offer too much time to be together. Still, she was happy for me to do the gig, so I called up Cov John and told him I could play. The story goes something like this...

A local band who none of us had heard of had got a gig, but the owners wanted them to play for much longer than their set would allow. They'd lined up a support band, but at the last moment they had to pull out. One of this other band is a regular at STE gigs so recommended local thrashers MINUTE MANIFESTO. They were into doing the gig, but with a set lasting around 15 minutes it was deemed too short. They recommended us. So began a day of phone calls and answer phone messages. We turned up first, watched a bit of the footy on the big screen and waited for the main band. They were cool guys, but it turned out that they'd never heard of us, or MINUTE MANIFESTO. They'd asked our singer what we were like and he'd said that we were like M.M. but with a few more tunes, so when we asked what sort of stuff they played they said "Oh quite like you, tuneful punky stuff." We looked at each other and wondered if they had any idea what they'd let themselves in for.

Anyway, as I said, they were cool, we got on fine and we left them to set up and get their sound check done.
While we were gone we made a few calls to let our friends know we were playing and actually wrote out a set list, we included songs that we don't normally play - just to pad the set out. Then we returned to do our sound check. We tried out our cover of "Young 'til I Die" which went well, and even got a round of applause at the end. Then we settled down to wait, and chat to the other band and their mates. We were due on at 11pm. After a little while the owner called over a couple of the other band, apparently, we were "too punk" and we couldn't play! The two guys pleaded on our behalf, so the owner said we could play if we turned down and did a short set. We didn't want to mess things up for the other band, but "fuck that!" Luckily the other band were with us on this and went back, we were now asked to go on earlier "before most people turn up - It's not a punk crowd!" That was okay, but we still expected to have the plug pulled after the first song.

A few of our mates had turned up by now and we went on half an hour early to play to the most punk crowd this venue had ever seen. Our first song brought a cheer, once our mates started (I think they were taking the piss), the students, never wanting to miss out on anything, joined in so every song was met with a huge cheer, it was so funny but also the best reaction we'd ever had. A couple of guys at the front started to call out for us to do covers, "In The City", "No More Heroes" and, bizarrely AGNOSTIC FRONT! We did dedicate a cover to them, but I don't think they realised that "Wetspots" was a cover, and I'm sure they'd never heard of CHANNEL 3 but they cheered anyway. "Young 'til I Die" was our last song, we fucked up the start but got through it at the second attempt. More cheering, and cries of "Moooore!!" We didn't do any more we just thanked them and packed up. It was fun playing, and being branded as "Too punk" was a bonus, but they never pulled the plug. That would have been really punk!