Glasgow Barrowland Reviews
Kasino
Welcome
to the Tour
If you're
anything like us, you're probably used to sending off tapes and CDs to all sorts
of people in a desperate attempt to get gigs. Onstage at 5am? No problem! On the
moon? Sure! Can we use someone else's back line?
We've all been through it. Tape after tape to countless Battle of the Band
competitions, A&R men, promoters, other bands. And from time to time someone
well-known does a "send your tape in, folks" competition for a support
slot, and once again you send your tape in and forget all about it because it's
always someone else's band that gets picked.
Except... sometimes it's not. Sometimes you open what you thought was another
final demand from the bank manager and it turns out to be from Mansun's tour
manager instead. Dear Casino. You're playing Glasgow Barrowlands. Next week.
Welcome to the tour.
Of course, none of the rest of your band will be contactable. You'll spend all
night on the phone, having kittens and trying to find someone to tell about it.
You'll tell the speaking clock, the Operator and Directory Enquiries. And, of
course, when you finally do reach the rest of the band, not a single one will
believe you. So you barrel up the motorway and, after holding the letter up to
the light to check it's genuine, each member of your band will go into shock.
We'd sent a tape in to Mansun's bassist, Stove, way back in the summertime and
promptly forgot about it, other than a quick "damn" when the main
support was announced and we hadn't heard anything. To tell the truth, we hadn't
even bothered our arse too much with the presentation - quick letter, run off a
tape, stick it in an envelope and there goes another couple of quid down the
drain. So we weren't exactly expecting a letter from Tommy Winstone, the tour
manager for Mansun.
The letter itself was very straightforward. Welcome to the tour, here's the
times, here's what you can and cannot do. The bulk of the rules were about
friends and passes: don't give your "access all areas" pass to anyone
else or you'll be ejected from the venue; please don't bring 200 mates and
expect to get them in for nothing. Please don't run over your allotted time;
please don't upset us on the night. You're probably thinking that it's all
common-sense advice. So did we... but it makes you wonder how previous support
bands have behaved if the Tour Manager feels he has to spell it out in the
welcome letter.
The letter wasn't a negative one by any means, though. We were told everything
we needed to know, given a guest list of six people plus our own crew and Tommy
wished us all the best for the gig.
We're still jumping around the living room at this point, of course. But
eventually we calmed down and started thinking about the guest list. Six people
means one-and-a-half people each, so that ruled out squads of friends because
anyone who doesn't get on the list would petrol-bomb our houses. Instead we were
sensible and used the places for the scout at King Tut's Wah-Wah Hut and the
people who help us out by driving to gigs, humping gear up and down stairs, all
the crap stuff that we can't afford to pay anyone to do yet.
In addition to the guest list, Mansun would also pay us fifty quid. Doesn't
sound too impressive but when you consider that record companies pay thousands
to get bands onto tours, it's not bad at all. And it's fifty quid more than we
usually make. The letter also suggested that, if we wanted to have Mansun's
sound engineer, monitor engineer and lighting director for the gig, it would
only be £15 each. We thought "that's bloody good value" and decided
against using our own people; off went a fax to Tommy Winstone detailing the mic
list, stage plot and contact numbers. Then we went off to phone the speaking
clock again.
The next step, we thought, was to try and get some publicity. It was at this
point we learned an important thing about support bands: nobody cares. The Daily
Record and Evening Times said they'd call us back, then didn't and hid under the
desk whenever we phoned; most newspapers were quite huffy and either told us to
sod off or didn't reply to our messages and faxes. We did get one word in the
NME, though. The word was "Casino"... but it's a start, isn't it?
Finally we struck gold when The Sun decided to run the story. Page 19, top of
the page, photo of us and a photo of Mansun. We looked like a bunch of serial
killers but it did have some unexpected effects: sarky comments from workmates,
mostly, but our guitarist Mark was recognised by a taxi driver and spent a happy
evening in a nightclub being propositioned by young women.
The gig itself turned out too surreal to be scary - the stage crew thanking us
for helping them unload our van was probably the most bizarre moment. What
amazed us was how well we were treated - national support Gay Dad gave us huge
quantities of lager; crew and engineers went out of their way to make us feel
welcome; Stove and Paul from Mansun made a point of diving backstage to say
hello and invited us to the aftershow party. The contrast to pub and club gigs
couldn't be more marked. No attitudes, no prima donnas, and - at last! - we
could hear the vocals onstage.
Because everything was so well-organised, we weren't scared at all when it was
time to go onstage. We ran up the gangway, bathed in blue light, and resisted
the urge to shout "Hello Glasgow! Are you ready to rock?". We'd put
together a set of our strongest, best-rehearsed songs and as a result we could
concentrate on the important things: jumping up and down, making faces and
striking guitar hero poses.
Unusually for us, nothing exploded, no strings snapped, I only forgot a few of
the words and our bassist didn't fall over. We played well, the audience liked
it, and with the combination of decent PA, lights and a very vocal crowd we felt
like pop stars. We won't forget the sound of cheering for a long, long time. And
we got asked for autographs afterwards.
Apparently there are better things to do on a cold Saturday night than jump
about onstage in front of 1,000 people. We're not convinced.
This
Review was Originally featured on the Kasino's
Official Website
at
http://www.kasino.co.uk/makemus.htm
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