23/01/11 - 24/01/11
There are no words to justifiably describe the weekend that I’ve just had - it’s one of the reasons I’m only getting round to doing this now on a Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning - but I’ll give it a go.
For those that don’t already know, which I suspect will be most of you, I play in a band called We See Lights. And we had a couple of gigs at the weekend. Both of which sold out, which you know, is always nice.
First off: Our gig in Edinburgh on Saturday. We played at The Lot, a cracking wee venue located on Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, which unfortunately will be closing at the end of this month. I feel very privileged to have not only played there, but for our gig to have been one of the last in the venue. Initially I was slightly nervous as to how the gig was going to go, as it was the first time I had played with We See Lights “officially” in well over a year, however my nervous disposition was quashed after a can of relentless and a few pre-gig cigarettes. Something of which I am glad because Micah Vincent, Washington Irvine and The Lowly Knights all put on spectacular performances. It’s no wonder the gig was sold out.
After watching The Lowly Knights it was pretty much a case of grabbing all our gear and heading to a flat party where we had been asked to play.
The flat was huge, there must have been about 200 people there at one point. We did a small acoustic performance in one of the bedrooms but still managed to fit everybody in with room to spare. It was really cool and relaxed but when people started singing along to the chorus of parachute things got a bit surreal. But in a good way. I felt a bit like a fly on the wall at a skins party. Just sort of walking around taking it all in. This culminated in me ending my New Year detox plan and getting involved in the action. Something else of which I’m glad because I felt really awkward and out of place up until then. Besides, I only had a few beers, a gin and tonic and a few nips of whiskey. That’s not so bad is it? There was a dj in the livingroom who had people dancing to some awesome techno beats. People in the bedrooms, people in the hall, people in the kitchen. The entire flat was literally packed full of people having a good time. I really need to start hanging out in Edinburgh more often. I forget too easily just how good a party in Edinburgh can be.
This brings us to the following days activities. After not getting to bed until around 4 in the am: I’m woken when Stephen comes into Ross’ flat looking for me; we were heading through to Glasgow on a band-mate date. This is occured at around 11:50am which gave us an hour and 10 minutes to get through to Glasgow to The Royal Concert Hall to see a girl called Rachel Sermanni play as part of the ongoing Celtic Connections.
Que traffic works at Corstorphine. Sod’s Law; I get up as quickly as possible, unwashed from the previous evenings debauchery and leave in the hope that we’ll make it in time for the gig starting, only to spend a good 25 minutes sitting in traffic. Luckily by the time we got through, and parked on the 7th floor of Buchannan Street Galleries car park, she had only just gone onstage so we only missed about 5-10 minutes of her performance. The gig was good: she reminded me a lot of Laura Marling but with stronger celtic/folk roots, and her backing band were incredible. It was all very civilized, as ever with performances at Celtic Connections. Fully seated, laughter almost to the point of being canned. You know the score.
After the gig we headed down to subway to grab something to eat as it was well after 2 and I hadn’t even eaten yet. I had a portion of nachos and a 12” steak and cheese baguette with extra cheese, all the salad/vegetables minus olives, cucumber and tomato, and topped off with hot chilli sauce.
We headed through to the west end after that, to a cool wee independant clothes/art-store/coffee shop. I can’t remember the name of the place as a whole but the coffee shop was called Auntie M’s, or something along those lines. The hot chocolate there was awesome and there were some pretty sweet clothes in that place too. Stephen and I had a pretty good chat about things, band related and otherwise. Although we both play in the same band, Stephen and I have been friends for as long as I can remember so it was good to just sit and catch up without the noise of sound engineers and bands setting up in the background.
We arrived at the venue for that evenings performance - Nice N’ Sleazy - at around 5 o’clock. The Lowly Knights were already there and informed us that 90 tickets had been sold for the gig with more being sold on the door. We did our souncheck then headed off to Sarah-Jane’s flat for some pasta. Sarah-Jane is Stephen’s sister and has also designed the artwork for our previous releases and our forthcoming ep. We only saw her idea for the new ep about an hour before heading back to the gig but it got us very excited for the task at hand and also for the future of We See Lights and the direction in which we are moving.
Shortly after arriving back at the venue the doors opened and the crowd flooded in. Another sold out performance. Micah Vincent took to the stage shortly after that and although I had enjoyed his performance the night before it was only on this occasion that I really got the opportunity to sit and listen to what it was he was doing. Not a million miles away from Stephen Fretwell and with very honest, open lyrics. This was Lowly Knights last night in Scotland before heading back to Belfast and just like the previous night they put on a superb show. Even entertaining the crowd’s cries of “one more tune” by coming back on even though they had played all of their own songs. Still, they finished with a cracking cover of Something Good Can Work by Two Door Cinema Club and everybody left with a smile on their face. Most of all me.
A very good weekend for We See Lights. An even better weekend for juniorlight.
