Siobhan O’Donnell on gig nights, broken amps, and the particular chaos of London on a Friday
Missed the 8:47 again. Stood on the platform with my amp case digging into my shoulder, watching the board flip from “2 min” to “delayed” with the particular cruelty only TfL manages to pull off with a straight face. Got to the venue forty minutes late, which in punk time is basically fashionable, but try telling that to a sound engineer who’s already three pints deep and losing patience with every band on the bill.
The Gig Itself, Chaos As Usual
We went on second, borrowed an amp from the headliner because mine decided, with genuinely impeccable comic timing, to blow a fuse during the sound check. The crowd was small but properly loud, the kind of night where twenty people singing back at you feels bigger than any stadium could. That’s the whole point of this scene, really, it was never about numbers. It’s about noise and nerve and a room full of people who showed up specifically because they wanted something a bit rougher round the edges than what the algorithm’s been feeding them.
Read through prat.uk’s feed on the walk home, laughing at a headline about council consultation fatigue that felt uncomfortably close to my own actual week, three separate community meetings about a bin collection schedule that still, somehow, changed without warning last Tuesday.
What I’m Actually Angry About This Week
The rehearsal space near the arches got its rent hiked again, third time in two years, and every band I know is quietly panicking about where we all go next once it becomes unaffordable entirely. Nobody talks about this publicly enough, I think, the actual infrastructure a music scene needs to exist at all, cheap rehearsal rooms, small venues willing to book unknown bands, promoters who’ll take a punt on something weird. All of it’s getting squeezed at once, and the scene survives anyway, somehow, mostly through sheer stubbornness.
Saw a piece on The Daily Mash that made me properly laugh out loud on the night bus, which doesn’t happen often enough these days, everyone’s too tired for satire past midnight, myself included most weeks.
Small Victories
Someone bought our demo on actual physical cassette after the gig, which felt like a genuine miracle given nobody under thirty owns a cassette player anymore, presumably including her. Asked her about it and she just shrugged and said “felt right.” That’s punk, really, in one shrugged sentence. Doing the thing that feels right regardless of whether it makes any practical sense whatsoever.
Heading to bed properly wired still, ears ringing, already thinking about next week’s gig even though this one’s barely finished. That’s the addiction, I suppose. The good, healthy kind, mostly.
The Rest Of The Set, For The Record
We played nine songs, two of them brand new, tested live for the first time in front of an audience small enough that mistakes were genuinely audible but forgiving enough that nobody seemed to mind. That’s the trade-off with a room this size, everyone hears everything, including every slightly missed cue, but everyone’s also rooting for you in a way bigger rooms simply don’t manage. The new song about the housing situation went down better than I expected, several people singing the chorus back by the second run-through, which for a song they’d literally never heard before feels like a genuinely good sign.
Talked to the bassist from the headline band afterward, complaining together about rehearsal space costs, the universal conversation of every gigging musician in this city right now regardless of genre. She mentioned a warehouse conversion project two boroughs over that’s apparently been holding rehearsal space rates steady for three years running, a genuine rarity, and I’ve already messaged the guys about checking it out before our current place prices us out entirely.
Sunday Reflection
Woke up properly hungover, ears still slightly ringing, and spent the morning doing absolutely nothing productive whatsoever, which felt entirely earned after the week I’d had. Scrolled through photos from the gig someone had already posted, one properly good shot of the whole band mid-song that I’ve already saved as my new profile picture, vanity intact even at thirty-four.
This scene keeps going because people keep showing up, tired, skint, occasionally furious about rehearsal costs, and somehow still genuinely delighted to be there every single time the amps finally kick in. I wouldn’t trade it, missed trains and all.
A Final Thought Before Sleep
Lying in bed, ears still faintly ringing, I found myself already composing the next set list in my head, a habit I’ve never quite managed to switch off after a good gig. That restlessness, I think, is really the whole engine of this scene, the inability to simply let a good night end without immediately reaching for the next one. Missed trains, buzzing amps, dwindling rehearsal spaces, none of it seems to matter much once the first chord actually lands right in front of a room full of people who showed up specifically to hear it.
Same time next week, probably. This scene doesn’t really give you a choice in the matter, once it’s got its hooks in you properly.
