By Paul Loader

As I could not get any of my Bristol Rock’s colleagues to come and review my band The Mudheads gig at the Bunch of Grapes on Saturday night, I thought I would write one myself. 
Note from Kevin: "Paul neglects to mention that your glorious Bristol Rocks editor is barred from the Grapes for crimes to heinous to mention!"

The gig did not start as you might expect for a band of The Mudheads huge standing and status. No, I travelled to the Grapes in the back of the van wedged in between the PA and the back line speakers with nothing but the light off of my mobile phone for company. Now that has to say something about my band mates when the elder statesman of the group is subjected to a discomfort and experience that made Space Mountain in Disney World feel like a gentle cycle ride. Needless to say, when I finally fell out the back of the van I was the same shade of green as a snooker table.

With the help of our man Kieron, all round good egg, driver and crew for the evening we managed to load in and set up in under an hour and got down to sound checking.

It’s at this point that the ‘drunk of the night’ introduced him self. Now all the muso’s out there will know this guy. He’s usually been in the bar since lunchtime, has lost any sense of polite proximity and has a wealth of untapped Anglo Saxon in his vocabulary arsenal.

He always starts with the same time honoured phrase of “Never mind all that tuning #*****’s just get on and #***ing play something. 

There was no way we were going to achieve anything without sound checking first as CJ (drummer) has just bought a new drum kit, which threw all our normal settings out of whack. He also got with the kit a new snare drum called a ‘Piccolo’. 

Now does that word…..’Piccolo’.....conjure up an image of a slight, timid type of instrument for you? It does for me. It’s as if the slighted puff of breath and the Piccolo runs off to its mother in tears and looking for a hug! Oh bless.

Piccolo, it’s such a petite, delicate word don’t you think? 

Nope, this flippin thing made my ears bleed. It’s now two days following the gig and my head is still ringing like there’s a fire engine in it.

So as I said, we had to reset EVERYTHING. This was made especially difficult by Aaron (guitar), who being the youngster of the band, communicates by telepathy and expects everybody to know what he’s a): doing, b): requesting and C): talking about…..all my giving you a particularly HARD stare that Paddington Bear would have been proud of. I kept reminding him that they have NOT yet made it illegal for parents to smack their offspring if it is a): below the waist, and b): doesn’t leave a mark, and that a swift knee in the happy sacks would fulfil both these criteria if he didn’t start being a tad more cooperative.

Anyway, job done we toddled off for a well earned pint of happy juice.

I think that I must have that kind of face as the guy from earlier toddled up and started to tell me, in detail and at some volume about his hobby of collecting antiques and of all things Harmoniums. To be fair to the guy, he did tell a good story and I kind of got drawn in, especially when he got to telling me about his purchase of the day, which was a plastic commemorative beaker for the Queens Jubilee………did they have plastic back in 1953???

CJ came and rescued me and we were off! Amps on 11, sticks set on kill, rock and flaming roll!!

We like to go for a bit of an onslaught at the beginning, blending four or five songs together in order to pin the audience to the back wall and not giving them the opportunity to either breathe or get bored.

Trouble is, two songs in Aaron snaps a string. He has a spare guitar of course but the momentum has been broken and we need to get back into the flow.

“Land Down under”….that always rocks…”Hammer”….more punky rock. “I’ve got the Music in me”….a bit 70’s I know, but I get to play a funky bass line.

It was then that I spotted a flaw in my plan.

You see, without my glasses I’m as blind as a bat. I even have the set list written in such large font that the crowd on the other side of the street can read it. I kid you not; I have 9 A4 pages of set list with about four to five songs listed on each. That’s why when you come to a Mudheads gig you see Aaron or CJ or sometimes BOTH shouting the songs at me.

Trouble is, I also can’t see the frets on my bass, so I normally have them marked up with black tape. However, tonight I’m featuring my brand new American Custom Fender P bass, and I have failed to put any tape markers on it. The bass riff in “I’ve got the music” is a bit fiddly at the best of times……let alone when you have to GUESS where the frets are.

Anyway, we made it to the end of the first set unscathed; although my hearing took a battering from the new drum kit (I also noticed several groups of people retreat from the front to the back of the bar.)

The number of people for the first half had been relatively small by Grapes standards (still triple many other venues), however, by the time we got into “Turning Japanese” and “Whole lot of Rosie” the place was beginning to fill up.

A 20 minute break, I had to rescue CJ from our antique dealing friend this time and we were back into it. This time with my bass marked up, the niggling fold back problems solved, we were ready to roll. And roll we did. CJ and I were soaked to the skin with sweat, even Aaron; the ‘Cool Myster’ produced the odd bead or two of perspiration on his brow.

I found my voice and managed to scream my tonsils out, CJ giggled like a deranged lunatic for the whole set, totally in love with his new kit and Aaron just went guitar hero on us…foot on monitor, head back, long searing lead licks…all great boys own stuff.

We finished on the button and left the stage area.

The encore was expected, so not asked for with any particular enthusiasm, so we decided to not be pretentious and so didn’t do one, much to the disappointment of one bod who followed us out into the street demanding that we go back on.

Many kind words were sent our way, my favourite being from Alan the bass player for DeFacto. “Only The Mudheads could slot ‘The King of the Swingers’ from the ‘Jungle Book’ into their set, and totally get away with it.” Love it!

I love playing at the Bunch of Grapes. It’s a weird shape and for the most part you feel like you are performing to small select crowd as the majority are all along the main bulk of the bar and thus out of sight of the band. However, we have never failed to play to an appreciative crowd there, and we love it when people get up and dance as this causes a real headache to anybody trying to get to or from the loos…normally they just end up joining in. 

So that was it. Pack up in even faster time as poor old Kieron was on call and had been summoned to Berkshire after we had finished with him, load the van and back to the rehearsal room to ditch the gear (Aaron of course having disappeared at this point…again…there’s no respect for the elderly in this band). Then off home for the traditional Pot Noodle and a glass of scotch!! 

Now that’s what I call rock & roll!