I arrived at Troy’s house sometime around 10am on the 19th of March 2025. After getting some breakfast at a local drive-thru, we commenced our journey to the tune of The Beatles’ Can’t Buy Me Love. “I hate this 60’s shit,” said Troy as he rifled through my CD collection. “Let’s have some proper music on.” His finger stopped on a copy of Extreme’s 1990 effort Extreme II: Pornograffiti, a record which had been gathering dust in my CD binder for a couple of years. Once we got past some cumbersome traffic we were well on our way to Chelmsford. We stopped off at Peterborough Services, and met up with our bandmates Joe and Lucas. Joe ate KFC and Lucas had noodles as we discussed that weekend’s Formula One race, Troy’s forgotten toothbrush, and a little bit about the mess we’d gotten ourselves into. 

 

We were booked to play a gig at Hotbox, a small venue under a railroad track in the city of Chelmsford. The gig would be broadcast during Paul Dupree’s show on CitySoundRadio, a station which some of us were familiar with. Just a few years before, Dave and Lucas had been featured there, but this was different. There would be no retakes, there could be no fuck-ups, this was capital L live, serious business. 

As we pulled out of Peterborough there was a sense of foreboding in my gut. I hadn’t played a show in over a year, three of our number had never played a show. 

 

We arrived at The Ship, a pub which moonlit as a hotel, and parked up in front.

The bartender, Tom, a tall man with a small, red head, led us to our room. It was a comfortable arrangement, television, wardrobe, and two beds.

“I’ll take the double bed!” I said.

“Nah he’s already put his bags down on it, you can get the cuck sofa.” said the lanky leprechaun.

Bemused, we ushered him out of the room. I changed into my gig attire and realised I was starving. 

 

We sat in our room for a bit, getting ready, waiting for the guys to arrive, when our wardrobe began speaking to us.

“TOM…TROY?” said the wardrobe. 

“What the fuck?” said Troy.

We darted from the room and looked around. On the other side of the wall, we met Joe and Lucas, and began to talk about the parking situation.

The situation was thus. We could park until 5AM the next morning and pay for this via a phone application, but after our allotment expired, we’d have to leave for an hour before we could buy another ticket.

“Well, at least we can use the money we make from this show to pay our parking fines,” said Joe, to raucous laughter.

Thus began a tour of the local car parks. Wherever we went, the situation seemed to be exactly the same. At one point, Lucas walked off in a dejected malaise. I got more and more hungry.

We ended up in a record shop specialising in Drum’n’Bass, where the snaggletoothed owner gave us advice:

“In all my years here, I’ve never seen anyone get a ticket, if you park over there behind the shop, you can stay as long as you like.”

That’s fantastic news - I thought to myself before realising I was in a record shop specialising in Drum’n’Bass. The guy had to be lying in aid of some kind of sick game.

We decided to tactically ignore the issue of parking until it became more pertinent. We went to the local alehouse and drank. Joe had his first alcoholic drink in almost a year.

“What a lovely day to be in Colchester,” he said, setting down an empty half-pint of light cider.

 

As we sat there, recording skits for our behind-the-scenes video log 'Beneath The Surface', the owner of the venue we’d be playing walked past. Lucas immediately shot up to shake the man’s hand. Looking at him, I thought he’d be right at home behind the desk of a used-car-dealership in New Jersey, a kind of cigar-between-teeth visage.

 

Then came the time for load-in and soundcheck. The venue was bigger than we’d anticipated, and stocked to the gills with esoteric alcohol. Soundcheck went well, we ended up sounding pretty good, and we waited for the second band to arrive.

They were a psych-rock outfit called Eternal Karma, reminded me a bit of Jefferson Airplane in sound and aesthetic. I had reliable information that their drummer was a woman, and that she was running a bit late. I couldn’t be bothered to tear down my entire setup so I waited for her to arrive to discuss matters. My hunger progressed to delirious starvation.

As Lucas offered to wait and meet the drummer in my stead, a woman burst upon the scene. I turned to meet her.

“HELLO ARE YOU THE DRUMMER” I said.

“Erm… no? I’m the photographer?” she said.

“WHAT IS YOUR NAME?” I said.

“Olivia.” she said.

I looked at her confused.

“Olivia Knight.”

That rang a bell.

“LUCAS, THE PHOTOGRAPHER YOU HIRED IS HERE.” I said, “NOW CAN WE PLEASE GET SOMETHING TO FUCKING EAT.”

Troy, Joe, Dave and I all went back to The Ship to eat and change outfits. When we came back, Eternal Karma were playing in full swing, and sounding pretty good. 

“This is just our soundcheck by the way,” their singer said.

It turned out that there had been a thirty minute power outage which not only prevented the openers from soundchecking, but had wiped all the data from our light show. Shit. This is not going well. Either way, the doors were now open, and our manager, Mark, pulled us into the back room. He didn’t want us to be “too accessible” and said if we were to be stars, we’d have to act like stars. I agreed wholeheartedly with this sentiment because it meant I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone.

I spent some time warming up on the pad I’d brought with me, and soon it was time for Eternal Karma to play their set.

They played their set, it was decent, but I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was thinking about the parking situation.

Seriously, how were we going to get out of this town without getting clamped by the useless, money grubbing busybodies morally feeble enough to take work in the council? Either way, it would have to wait. We were on in five.

As Paul Dupree introduced us to the crowd, both in the flesh and across the airwaves, Dave gave form to the show’s first notes. A weak, unsustained twiddle emerged from his amp. As it turns out, someone had dropped an extension cable onto his pedal board, which completely fucked his settings. 

We played the show, the crowd cheered. We are after all, professionals.

 

After the show came long, boring, technical conversations with people who are, if nothing, important to us. We thanked everyone who came, and I took my seat behind the bar.

The guys graciously offered to take my stuff back to the pub as I spoke to the bartenders and drank lager.
It was the sound guy’s birthday, so we had cake, and a local drunk gave a very moving rendition of Marilin Monroe’s Happy Birthday Mr President as we cheered and clapped.

Then, the guys came back, and the real fun could begin.

Then, the kitchen staff from The Ship came down and drank with us.

Then, the bartender locked the door and rolled down the shutters.

We spent most of that night drinking expensive booze, sometimes based on the bartender’s recommendation, sometimes based on the roll of a dice.

The arrival of Absinthe, Tequila, and Moonshine signalled the end of our carousing, and we walked back to our lodgings.

 

At about 6:30AM, I awoke to a phone call from Joe in the next room.

“Did you pay to extend your parking?”

 

It remains to be seen if we get fined, but for the time being I’d consider the night a success.