The Ghosts of Christmas Past

First thing to mention about last Friday was I brought three guitars expecting to break at least one string, and ended up breaking three strings on three different guitars; my workhorse Schecter, my semi acoustic Washburn, and my ancient and very badly abused Thinline Tele. In fact most of the damage done to my Tele over the years has probably been through gigging at Bannermans. If you look closely you can see that each guitar is missing a string and is drenched in sweat. Nice!

It was a memorable night as we returned to the sweaty, soaking swamp infested Bannermans for Vini’s farewell bash. The heat and humidity outside were nothing compared to the tropical heat inside. Its usually pretty sweaty down in the underworld but last night was particularly bad. Cammy had just arrived back from India and he said it was worse than India in July. We had to stop the set half way through to open the doors and allow the oxygen to be replenished in the room, and if we hadn’t I genuinely believe somebody (probably me) would have collapsed. After a small lie down out on the street in the Cowgate we went back in and played the second half of our set, or at least most of it. By the end I felt like Martin Sheen at the end of Apocalypse Now, climbing out of a primordial swamp, looking to murder somebody. We had to cut at least half a dozen tunes because we had ran over and the bar was shut. I hate that, and I don’t mind telling you I was pretty pissed off, especially because we were late in opening because it took ages to sound check.

Highlights include guest appearance on stage from Big Andy Laidlaw and from Cammy Sinclair our founding member/drummer on a rare cover of ‘Special Brew’. The last time Bombskare featured Cammy on drums and Big Andy on vocals would be Xmas 2001, so a rare treat for all our old fans. Its not the first time that Cammy and Andy have rejoined the band briefly and almost certainly won’t be the last. It was also the debut appearance from our new man on the kit Sam McLeod, playing a brand new song, which went down well. He did exceptionally well to be playing a brand new tune for his first appearance, but it was bang on. I guess it's all brand new to him, just like his shiny face is brand new to us.  We unfortunately had to cut his second song out of the set, but it was a real baptism of fire playing just one song in that heat. It’s bad enough dancing but dancing under the lights on the stage is pretty heavy going especially for an unfit bugger like me. Even for someone young and fit like Sam it was still a shock to the system. So anyway, it was a bit like the ghosts of Christmas past present and future on the drums on Friday.

The gig was a success. Now that Vini has left the band (honourable discharge) and is officially a civilian, please remember that you no longer have to salute him in the street. He is dedicating his free time to museums, theatre, walks in the park, opera, and the finer things in life. God bless him. I can’t wait to be demobbed, it sounds great.