The Old Neptune, Whitstable
The Old Neptune, Whitstable, 6th September 2003:
Our first gig since Gav’s departure. We now have Mr. Phil Davis on bass. Up until practically the last minute I was worried that nothing would happen at all, but in retrospect, this was probably the smoothest running of all the Music Days that the Neptune has had (at least, that I’ve been involved with). Perhaps in comparison this isn’t saying much (waiting nearly three hours to play in 1999, or the Biblical deluge of 2001).
There was a veritable banquet of musical delights on offer (or something). We had (more or less in order) Jim & Geoff; Paul The Other One; The John Doe Band (Ian & co); The Psychotic Reaction; King Kuda (looked like a boy band, played pretty good, albeit generic, rawk); Exit 27 (the “signed” band: looked like Pikeys, played bad indie music); and solo acoustic sets from Ian and Molly to wind-down the evening and allow people to “mellow out” (I believe this is the youth parlance). Our set was well received, we avoided the brief squall, we got to crank up our BIG AMPS, and everybody seemed happy. Mik played with his inimitable aplomb. I thrashed the Shergold, twiddled the Ibanez and thumped the Hohner. Phil did sterling work in his new role, and his Commodore semi feeds-back like hell, which I particularly like — lots of mating rhino noises. “Punk, but gentle” as one of our legions of fans put it: make of that what you will.
Set list:
- High Noon (DJ Shadow)
- King of The Jungle (trad.)
- Cocoon (Williams)
- ES-40 (Williams)
- Last Train (Williams)
- In Your Head (Williams/Croft)
- Kinky Afro (Happy Mondays)
- Put Your Weight On Me (Williams)
- Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
- What’s Under The Stairs? (Williams)
- Buried Alive (Williams)
- Bass VI (Williams)