Alien Murmuration - Chapter 20 - Summer 1992

Just another gig! 

I look out over the crowd. I wonder ‘how has this sight become ‘just another gig’?” Turning to the others, I smile as Rod tickles his drum kit while pounding the bass drum like a 90’s Charlie Watts. We depend so much on his solid four-to-the-floor beats; it is the basis on which we build our sound. The first building block is Charly’s acid beats and the funky drum patterns from her 303. I can hear her now, twisting the acid line around Manny’s locked down but loose, funky basslines that hug my simple riffs and chords.  As I turn back to sing my line, I see Wills with his eyes closed and mouth open. Somehow, he drives the groove and sprinkles John Squire and Johnny Marr-inspired jangling and chugging riffs over everything without saturating it. He punctuates my vocal melodies to punctuate my words and amplify my emotions with licks and flourishes.

I look up and raise my hands in triumph for the chorus. I look on in astonishment as the crowd responds in the same way. I catch a few eyes and wonder why this isn’t as confronting as when I do it one-on-one. I even manage to return their smiles and draw them in for more by nodding my head.

This is fucking amazing!

I recognise a fair few faces and wonder if we are building up a bit of a following. It's hard to keep up with who Manny knows and who he doesn’t. I dream that, somehow, this is drawing the crowd’s gaze from Seattle and creating a picture of ripping their tattered cardigans and replacing them with Fila and Ellesse tracksuit tops. We make so much more and so much more variety in the UK. Grunge is okay, but it is so fucking one-dimensional; Kurt Cobain has shit to say, and the man is a fucking poet, but the rest of it? Nah.

My voice floats and flies above the audience, bouncing along on the 303 line as it phases in and out of my words. Will’s takes over and the whole thing is hypnotic. I start to nod my head and wig out on the grove we hit. It sounds good here, just like it does in the studio. God knows what the sound man has done out there, but they all seem to be enjoying it. Well in that cool, disinterested way that indie kids like to enjoy things.

I scan the faces and enjoy the half-smiles they are hiding. Then, I see a girl who can only be described as flawless. I stumble a little as I am drawn out of my bubble. I lower my arms to cradle my guitar and join Wills in some slightly overdriven chugs and stuttering scratches. We drop in and out before I step on the phaser pedal and hit the wah to engulf his picking with a psychedelic sonic spray of sound that embraces the audience. As I watch, the girl is totally transfixed by Manny. I let out a gentle laugh . . . she just can’t take her eyes off him. He doesn’t seem to have noticed; he is way too busy enigmatically and energetically flicking his fringe to and fro as the outro and climax of the gig builds.

I step back on my pedals and step back, calming my guitar and leaving the space open for Wills. As he steps forward, the audience starts to cheer. You can hear the excitement for him and it is fucking mad. I smile as he strides past me and opens his guitar up. His playing is usually so considered and calm, that he lovingly bends over his guitar and teases the most beautiful sounds out of it. Right now, though, he is opening up that white Thunderbird and making it fucking howl. Messy and wild, he doesn’t care if he hits a few extra strings. If you are not listening to him, it is hard to hear any single part of the rest of us. We are one. We are a single pulsating, grooving, churning mass of sound. I step back and turn to my amp to tease out some feedback to soak this noise and extinguish the fire. At first, it adds to the cacophony and rattles my brain. The feedback swirls over me and takes me somewhere else. I am trying to keep it in key as the others break down the groove and open up the space for this last hit of sound.

After what seems like an age, I take my guitar off my shoulder and lean it against the amp. My capo in place to keep in key with the 303 line. I turn and follow the others off stage, holding my arms up to the audience and clapping them meaningfully. As I make my way down the steps, I point and smile at everyone, reiterating my joy at their performance. The crowd applauds as we walk out the door to the Richmond stairwell that serves as a dressing room. 

The strains of Ghost Town follow us, and we all turn to look at each other. I can feel the smile on my face and just can’t stop it. 

“Well that, lads . . .”  Manny begins as he jumps up onto his haunches “. . . was fucking brilliant!”

We all nod enthusiastically and stand to join him. We stretch our arms out and come together in a communal hugging circle. 

“Manny is right,” I agree. “That was from a different planet.” 

Rod starts to whoop and cheer wildly and we begin to bounce 

“Fucking hell, guys, we were great!” Wills booms . . . with a little disbelief in his voice. We laugh and cheer. Charly suddenly stops . . . 

“Wait . . .  listen” she says, flapping her hand up and down to both get our attention and shut us up. “They are still cheering” . . .

As we listen, the cheers morph into stamping and barely audibly at first from this distance, we hear sharpening sounds of a crowd calling for an encore. I don't know if any of us are ready for this or if we quite believe it.

The next thing I know, I am aware that everyone is looking for me. I desperately look over to Manny, appealing to him as the one who usually saves me when the pressure is on. All he does is nod. Fucking nods. What am I supposed to do with that?

“I . . .er . . . suppose we better . . .play another fucking song!!” I kind of end up shouting at the end. Trying to match the levels of excitement.

“Yeah genius!” Wills looks at me, smiling, deadpan, snuffing out my weak attempt at a rousing inspirational speech. “What are we going to fucking play, though?”

Rod chips in with “Drive Blind?”

We all nod our agreement as we walk up the stairs to rejoin what is apparently an adoring crowd

As I open the door, the encore's stomping, pounding and screams seem to transform into cheers and whistles instantly. 

‘Spirit level . . .  chives’ springs into my mind, and a vision of Vic and Bob thrusting chives and a spirit level at Les draws a smile across my lips.

As we take to the stage again, I can’t help but feel that this encore business kind of throws a damp blanket over our well-crafted and well-practised show finale. 

Charly turns some knobs and presses buttons to wake her 303 again, as it grumbles out of its slumber,  it spits out a grumpy stuttering bassline for Rod to hook his shuffling drums. Soon, they and Manny are locked into a simple four-chord jam.

“Drive Blind” I mutter into the microphone just before Wills starts to grind out a dirty chunky overdriven crunch. I join him with a swirling flange that lifts the whole thing like a helicopter.

I croon with reserved and laconic gusto. Sometimes, it's hard to walk the line between cool and burning emotion. The irony of the fact that I am anywhere near a cool line is not lost on me.

I look out across the swaying audience; there seems to be hair flying everywhere. The lights guy adds some strobe, and the hair begins to stutter like one of those old black and white movies. I notice Katie in the audience with some sparkles in her hair, catching the light of the stobe and hypnotising me. Some of the audience are dancing along with the strobe, the shuffling drums and the 303 line. Others, however, are swaying ethereally to the swirling and breaking guitars. I feel like I am going to hold this picture in my memory, like a fixed point in time. Is this important? I break into a smile as I sing.

When I was younger this feeling would make me lose my balance and freak right out.

Now it is amazing.

At the end we are trading guitar licks and switching solos to build up the noise to another crescendo. I cannot wipe the smile from my face as I listen to Manny playing some loose runs over his bassline. I’ve never heard him sound so good. I have never heard us sound so good.

Wills steps on his wah and creates vertical patterns that twirl around my helicopter blades. ‘Where do we go now?’ I wonder. The audience still seem to be in their groove but many of them have their hands raised in the air and their heads thrown back. It looks like the last tune at the Zap. On this note, I step back and hold my guitar against the amp to create another wall of feedback.

The feedback signals the others to finish, and one by one, we drop out until the only sound left is the swirling screaming feedback.

As I walk off stage, I see Katie smiling at me, not really moving, her eyes wide and appreciative. She starts a slow clap while nodding her head, her sparkles, dancing in the darkness. She doesn't take her eyes off me. They scream, 'That’s it' and as I look over and see Manny hugging Chris and Tom, I feel like maybe we have just arrived.