Adz's Gig Diary

Adz's Gig Diary

A long time ago, about 20 years ago now (fuck), I was in a band. I went by "Adz", the band was called Eskimo Toccata, and we were... decidedly average. I've got some MP3's somewhere. Maybe I will share them one day. (Edit: maybe I won't. I've just listened and nearly imploded)

For now, I have something much more cringey to share. Turns out 17/18 year old Adam also kept a blog (of sorts), and I'd forgotten all about it. I dug it out of the ol' Wayback Machine this evening.

In a way, I envy Adz. He was a confident lad, perhaps more confident than he should have been. He got up on stage and sang at (not to) ever dwindling crowds, and nothing ever knocked his confidence. Not even people shouting "GET OFF THE STAGE!", apparently. Adz knew that he was "just OK" at best, and that didn't stop him. Adz was undoubtedly also a bit insufferable. Ah, the arrogance of youth.

These days, I sometimes pick up guitar and start to strum. And then I start to sing. And then I get self conscious and worry that someone might be able to hear me, so I stop playing and go do something on the computer. 🤷‍♂️ I think Adz is still in there somewhere, underneath this cynical shadow of my former self.

So here it is, unedited (spelling mistakes, cringe, the lot), except now in chronological order... I present to you, a glimpse into Adz's life. Some of you might remember him.


Friday 20th September - "Instrument Abuse", Rodmarton Village Hall, Rodmarton
Well well well! For our first gig that went VERY well! thanks to Hidden Epidemic for swapping places with us, much appreciated, you obviously have better crowd skills! So after finnaly being allowed to go on second, we opened out set... people gazed in awe and wonder as they heard the intro to dropout, so far so good.. the next bit was hard, We had gone to the gig with everyone thinking that Adz was gonna sound so utterly utterly utterly shit.. did alot for his confidence (OR NOT.. good job he'd drunk alot of kick and/or red bull before).. and then he sang... I dont think he can get over the look of shock on the faces of those people that had realised just how wrong they were...!!
This was an exceedingly good gig, no fuck ups, nothing! Lets just hope all our gigs in future are as good...

Highlights of the gig being:

The singer of Hidden Epidemic.. jeeeeez she has a hell of a pair of lungs on her!
The stadium-esque waving of lighters during losing streak
various band members gathered around the piano singing meatloaf backstage
Darry Dan coming up on stage only to be told that he is gay
The lineup was:

Hidden Epidemic
Eskimo Toccata
Anubis
Ginger Beaver

Friday 11th October 2002 - College Band Nite, at the Nelson Inn, Cirencester
not so sure that this gig was as good as instrument abuse, mainly because there was no sound coming back at us on stage. This made it especially hard for Adz and Chonnay, who kinda rely on the monitors to a)make sure they sound right, b) make sure they're in time with everyone else... but the crowd said we sounded ok, so, i'll beleive em me thinks!
Highlights of the gig include:

Darry Dan randomly coming on stage and providing backing vocals for losing streak, cheers dude
The fuck up in the timing of our cover or the Crocketts' "Would you still care?"
Adz forgetting the words to a song, and not only that but it was our own song!!
The line up was something like this:

Ginger Beaver
Eskimo Toccata
Asphyxia
Goldbox
Band 6

Friday 25th October 2002 - "Volume Over Talent" at the Nelson Inn in Cirencester
This gig went pretty well, the sound system was not so good, but the crowd seemed to like us, eventually. At the begining of our set, people walked off, and others shouted "GET OFF THE STAGE!!". Perhaps we were jinxed by the giant picture of MDC that we had stolen and hung on the wall behind the drum kit, but whatever it was went because we found our mojos again and people came back in. Which was nice. However it was probably the worst gig we've played so far...!

Highlights of this gig include:

George from British Beef singing with Adz during our cover of the Offsprings "The Kids Aren't Alright"
Darry Dan joining us not only in losing streak but in jesus vs elvis too (backing vox)
The equiptment cutting out just as we had reached a pause in the song anyway.. good timing or what?
Darry Dan kissing Sleggs on the lips after our set..HAHA
Adz pulled..woo
Overall it was a good gig, and the rest of the bands played well too. The line up was:

Freefall
Cooler than Wednesday Addams
Good Mother Lizard
Ginger Beaver
Eskimo Toccata
Sanctury

Friday 22nd November 2002 - "Volume Over Talent 2" at the Nelson Inn in Cirencester
Ok, the day went pretty much like this:
We decided to have a practice for the whole day today seeing as we didnt have college, we then gave up when leonard turned up at Chonnay's house with the booze! We thus proceeded to drink ouzo like it was water.. which was nice.. and lost all ability to play! Myself and Sanj however sobered up quickly! Chonnay and Glynn remained sober as judges...Glynn puked (after i force fed him cat food) Chonnay just fell asleep when we got to the Nelson!
"thats it" we all thought "we cant play tonight, we're gonna be to pissed!!".. but we managed to get our act together and played a damn good set (judging by that when given the choice the crowd wanted us to play 2 more songs rather than 1 more song!!) Our cheesy cover of Kylie Minogue's "Can't get you out of my head" went down paticulairy well (especially with Joe Smith.. who loves Kylie!) Darry joined us on stage and provided me with some harmonies in the songs he knew, and so did Tom Andrews, and Melf at one point, which was nice. All in all it was probably one of the best sets we have played so far!! PREPARE YOURSELF FOR ESKIMO DOMINATION...haha...doubt it!

Highlights of this gig include:

Our Kylie Minogue cover
Glynn puking every 10 minutes at the begining
Chonnay sleeping in the corner!
not sure... was too drunk to remember anything else!!!
This was the lineup...

C*nt
Gastropod
Skyfalls
Gingerbeaver
Eskimo Toccata
Boy Eats Girl
Good Mother Lizard

Saturday 8th December 2002 - "Punk Rock Show" at the Liberal club in Stroud
"Last night, glynny quit the band... now we're back together. Misunderstanding, didnt understand.. doesnt matter, now we're back together again.. lalalalalala!"
so yea, dont ask, unless u really want to know, in which case ask Glynn or me (Adz) for the details.. im sure one of us'll fill you in!
Ok, so we all got there on time for sound check, except sanj cos hes ill.. (poor sanj) things went wrong from there.. 8:00 came and the bass amp and PA hadnt arrived, drums werent tuned..!! and nobody was arriving! abut 50 people came over the next hour though. the music finnaly kicked off at 9:00 and we were all meant to have 1/2 hour each. Ginger Beaver got that.. then the next band milked it and had longer.. reducing our set time to 10 mins.. we played 3 songs.. *yay* and it was bad because glynn wasnt putting the effort in, sanj was ill.. and i was upset at the thought of us splitting up!.. but its ok now! british beef then played a similar time.. but it was cut short by the owners of the establishment who kicked us all out. So... along comes George (British Beef) and says "Adz, set these two smoke bombs off just as we leave and you can get all the gigs you want with us ever"... so i did.. went into the ladies bogs.. set them off.. and some woman came in saying "WHAT YOU DOING IN HERE?!" and i said "HAVING A PISS!.." "WELL THIS IS THE LADIES>..USE DOWNSTAIRS... WHATS THAT?!?!" "SMOKE..!!! HAHAHAHA!" and ran for my life.. hehehehehhehehehe so that was good. Everything that happened after the gig is best left quiet... apart from ofcourse tanz being incredibly nice and buying me a pack of camels.. woo! thanks tanz i love u much! also thanks to thain, michelle, charlotte, izzi, dawn, tanz, melf, lance and poppy, and the random guy, and nigel for staying in the hall during our set.. everyone else.. !ARRG

Highlights of this gig include:

glynn quitting the band
glynn rejoining the band
sanj just about managing to play
the whole gig generally being a fuck up
everybody disapearing/not standing up for both ours and ginger b's sets
Adz setting off the smoke bombs..!!!
This was the lineup...

Ginger Beaver
Some improvisational funk band
Eskimo T (just)
Brittish Beef

Friday 13th December 2002 - "Volume over Talent 3" at the Nelson Inn in Cirencester
This gig went ok actually (for once!). note that it went "OK" not "Brilliant" or "fucking amazing!". simply because we had had one practice with darry (who was, at the time of playing, pissed as a bastard) and we were all quite tired! Again sanj was ill.. and adz was on some sort of comedown from drinking "Turkish coffee" as Chonnay called it... Chonnay was ill.. and glynn could quite posibly be the only one that didnt have something wrong with him! So what with all the dan trying to harmonize and failing, and going off on random blues solos, and adz singing out of tune most of the time, and chonnay dying... the crowd seemed not to notice and moshed like crazy basts!

Highlights of this gig include:

Being panicked by jack who said that there were talent scouts there.. (only to discover that they were Teekle's neighbours!)
us... headlining...weird!
the PA being shit.. again
This was the lineup...

I cant remember the first two bands.. i'll update this when i find out
Sky Falls
Ginger Beaver
Cooler than wednesday addams
Eskimo T

Some day in December 2002 - "Chaz and Saz's 18th" at the Village Hall in Somerford Keynes
This was an odd one, we got there we were only meant to play for about 20 mins and then Jacks old band Sanctuary were only meant to play for about 20 mins, and then we were gonna stick a CD in and join in with the festivities. However we ended up jamming the whole night away, And i dont remember an awful lot of it cos i was SO hammered!!!!!

Highlights of this gig include:

Adz shouting "MALCOLM IS A TWAT" constantly down the mic
Adz being hammered
Glynn dying (pretty much) and jack taking over the bass part
Fresh Joining in for a sing song
Playing Teen Spirit and Song2!!!
Yes
This was the lineup...

Sanctuary

Eskimo T
An Eskimo-Sanctuary thing...

Friday 3rd January 2003- "Instrument Rehab" at the Village Hall in Rodmarton
This was the second gig we've played in Rodmarton, the sequal to instrument abuse infact (which was our very first gig!!) We all turned up WAAAAAY to early (about 6 hours before the show) and we pretty much did nothing cos the rest of the bands were all metal types, and thus we sat in a quiet corner most of the time! We opened (seeing as we were the only punk band there) This was the first gig that Jack played with us (all good firsts start in Rodmarton) he was pretty good! The set went ok, could have been better, especially in our cover of forest by SOAD, but atleast we tried, we played one new song "angel in denial" which was written the day before! nice

Highlights of this gig include:

Covering Chesney Hawkes' "I am the one and only"
Getting smashed as a bastard after our set
Ken (the design teacher at college) rating us an overall 2nd place in his list of favourate bands that were playing there.

This was the lineup...

Eskimo T
Anubis
Ginger Beaver
Cooler Than Wednesday Addams
Skyfalls
Morph

Friday 28th March 2003 - band night at the Nelson inn, Cirencester
Have forgotton all the details of this gig, was drunk, very drunk and it was a long time ago (adding this review only today on the30.08.03!) so the memories are hazy, if no existant... glynn dislocated his toe i know that much... um.. yea..

lineup:

Skyfalls
Eskimo T
Kickout
Buzztone

Friday 1st August 2003 - "unborn" at the Corn Hall in Cirencester
Ok so this was our first proper gig in about 6 months! (we had done a small set for jack's birthday party, and an accoustic set at the plough in stratton, but that is all since instrument rehab) We turned up at the usual time, hung around till it was time for out sound check... its 10 mins before we go on.... "Wheres your equiptment boys?"....... "um, we were told not to bring any amps or stuff jsut guitars and us"..."ah".... jon legs it home to get his cymbols and stuff (len drives off and catches him up so that it is quicker!) Sanj runs home to get his amp, gets back just in time, and the rest of the equiptment we managed to blag from the other bands! woo!. All in all we played a pretty good set (it helped actually having monitors this time!) HOWEVER.. we were the first band on.. what do people do when the first band is playing? sit in the bar, stand looking gormlessly at the stage, not arrive till later, miss the first band, generally assume that the first band is always shit.. so.. there we have it.. there were about 50 people there, but they looked like they didnt quite know what to do! shame. We didnt stay for any of the other bands, we needed drink, in a pub, so we left.

Highlights:

The mad rush for equiptment
leaving as soon as our set was over because it was boring

the lineup:

Eskimo T
Apache Rose
Subslider
Bad Obsession

Saturday 30st August 2003 - "Showcase" at the Corn Hall in Cirencester In aid of Tom Tooley
Well Well, i can probably say that last night was a sucessful night for all, we raised about £250/300 towards the charity (so i beleive). First band on were Insitu, debut gig, and they did it well, lance is a better singer than i thought he would be, fair play ya priicck :). The second band on were... odd and im sure possessed by satan, odd odd odd. Skyfalls and CTWA both put on a good perfomance as always, good work boys! We played posibly the best set we've ever played ever ever ever (and im not exagurating) For once the crowd actually jumped about and joined in, unlike the usual habit of watching without doing anything, was one of the best times i've had at a gig ever. Last but by no means least, were British Beef, they played an absolute stonker, was a good laugh.. especially in the mosh pit.. or pain hole.

Highlights:

Lance can sing!
Blagging 3 pints of cider for me... woo
shouting "JACK , I F**KED YOUR MUM" when he was anouncing the bands
Sanj receiving a Death Threat on stage.. dun dun dun..
George busting his hand during the beef's set and bleeding all over glynns bass which he was borrowing

the lineup:
Apache Rose
Subslider
Bad Obsession

Insitu
everysixseconds
skyfalls
CTWA
Eskimo T
British Beef