Guy McKnight (with lemon tea & ham sandwich) & Owen Johnston (with massive hangover & awful hair)
I think you will need a little bit of background information before we get started properly. Earlier in the year (around May I think) I was in Cambridge visiting my (then) girlfriend and we went to to see EMBLD (Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster) and over the course of the gig I met my (then) landlords best friend's son (or words to that effect). After a brief chat Josh (that's his name), my (then) girlfriend and myself agreed that we should do this again. Shortly after moving to Lincoln I received a message from Josh (for it was he) reminding to get my ticket for the gig and like a prize fool (completely forgetting how far London is from Lincoln (Cambridge to London is only about an hour)) bought it and braced myself.
So I took the short (4 hour) train journey from Lincoln to London to make good on a drunken promise with an absolute stranger. I actually took advantage of the weekend away to visit my family in Ipswich for my mothers birthday first. So on Sunday I got a lift to Shenfield (just outside of London) to save on train fair (I did. Massively). Josh was coming from Colchester so we picked him up on the way.
The next bit was easy, got to the station, hopped on the train, had a nice chat, got to London. This is where we made the first of several near fatal errors, we decided that since we had so much time we could sit in the pub near Liverpool street for a few hours and watch the football rather than dropping out bags off at my cousins in Hackney. When we did decide to move everything was going swimmingly until we hit Stratford and found that the entire overground service was closed (bloody Sundays) and that was the only route I knew to my cousins (Jenny, should have said that earlier). We enquired as to what to do and the train stewards only seemed to be capable of answering in single syllable utterances. So not wholly confident we hopped (we did a lot of hopping) onto a replacement bus. Long story short (and it is a long story) we got off far too soon, ended up walking for over an hour (with a brief rest bite in another pub) looking for a bus which turned out to be on the other side of the street. We did eventually find said bus (number 56) and had enough time to enter Jenny's home, sort of say hello, get directions (which turned out to be slightly in error) and leave. We then hopped (told you) on another bus which luckily for us had a very helpful driver who told us when to get off (politely).
Finally we had made it to the pub across the way from the venue to meet our mates. I already knew Liam and Amber from uni and Josh would later recognise them from the Cambridge gig (in the Haymakers) but the rest were people I had only heard of earlier that day. We had Kat (who has just finished sixth form and is not still in sixth form, my mistake), Callum (whom I sort of remembered from the Haymakers) and Alessia (who it turns out I felt up at the previous gig thinking that she was my (then) girlfriend. I was fortunate enough to capture the moment just after the misunderstanding, pictured below).
Owen, Alessia, stranger in the background and Amber in the foreground. (Haymakers)
The next band up (the actual warm up band) were Robots in Disguise. I have never liked Robots in Disguise and I thought that given their style of music (a sort of slushy Ladytron) that they were an odd choice of act anyway. I was wrong (although nobody else, bar my friend Amber, seemed to think so) they were really good and even though involving the audience was like letting blood from a stone they gave it their best and at the very least I am converted. I say converted, we spent most of the gig deciding which member you would rather sleep with (we changed our minds with each passing moment, depending on different situations we placed them in. Such as picnics or child rearing). They finished their set, got some abuse for having, and I quote, "Stupid, fucking Cheryl Cole tights. You slag!" and wandered off.
Now we had worked ourselves into a prime location for the main event, just left of centre at the front (but not so far to the front that we couldn't have a dance). And the band came out with a bang. Bang!
Lead singer Guy McKnight, on the night, with war paint!
Bursting onto the stage (and then just milling around for a moment) EMBLD kicked off (as always, I'm not betting over opening songs again) 'Monsiuer Cutts', which is always a good laugh. To be honest the other songs they played are now a bit of a blur as so many of the songs are at such a high tempo and the crowd tend to get a bit boisterous (or in the case of the Haymakers my (then) girlfriend, Josh and myself got a bit boisterous) but they did play a lot of album tracks with I appreciated. I made some friends an young man with a massive coat on who sweated a lot (he eventually paid the £1 to get it in the cloakroom), a fellow with exactly the same moustache as myself, a tiger and an aging hippy type who flung (flang?) me up into the air (without my prior consent!) and gave me a taste of crowd surfing. I would also like to thank (not that he'll be reading this) the guy that found my glasses in the middle of the mosh. Everyone was really great and had a good look around for me, but this nameless friend not only found and returned them, but also found a pound which he decided I deserved for being so brave. Needless to say I gave him a massive kiss. As we began our journey home with my partially punched out tooth, unbelievably stiff neck (there was literally no give in any direction!) and mushy toes I harked back to what had been the best gig in quite some time. Thanks EMBLD.
On the way home, we eventually found a taxi (the driver of which was so worrying that we were working out an exit strategy as he drove (drived?) with his knees so that his hands would be free for dancing). We stopped off for some late night Hackney Sandwiches and I sat up all night whilst my mate brought snoring to a new level. I ended up sat in the bathroom, reading Elle magazine for five hours. Still, best gig ever.
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