On Saturday 4th and Thursday 9th February we played our first gigs since March 2011 and our first as a quartet since we opened the Barn at Truck festival 2010.
So how did they go?
Well...on 4th we played at Fusion Arts centre which is located behind the East Oxford community centre on Cowley Road. The nights are run to raise funds for the Arts Centre and all the good work that they do (see http://www.fusion-arts.org/ for more info). These shows are partly organised by our friend Aiden Canaday who is the de facto leader of The Cooling Pearls who opened the night in some style.
We were up next and Soph in particular was very nervous. This may have been because there was a healthy looking crowd in the room at this point and after trudging through the snow (did we mention it was snowing?) and viewing the impressive array of work of local artists on the walls, they wanted more music.
We played a 5 song set featuring oldish songs, (In Orbit and All That Fall) new songs (most of which don't have names) and then Ambulance at the end which got some very welcoming whoops from audience members (thanks for that).
Then we watched We Aeronauts (reliably great even in acoustic mode), had snowball fights and went to the Fir Tree while Mark tried (and succeeded) in getting back to Bicester via public transport.
So, five days later and we prepared to play a show organised by Oxfordshire Music Scene magazine head honcho and all round good guy Stewart Garden. This was with Cat Matador, The Graceful Slicks and Mat Gibson. We were excited as we love The Cellar and have played many (but still not enough) shows with Cat Matador. It went well, Andrew was feeling unwell and pretty spaced out so is not the best judge of the performance but everyone enjoyed it and it (the music) did seem to really be coming together at times. Cat Mat were ace as well and super-tight while Graceful Slicks and Mr Gibson did a fine job of warming up those that had trudged through the snow (did we mention it was snowing again?).
Anyway "the shows went pretty well thanks" is the short answer. We won't be posting in such depth about every single show we do but these were the comeback ones so we'll allow ourselves the indulgence.
Next up we are giving ourselves the time to hone and write yet more new songs and will be looking to play live again very soon.
See you then and thanks to all who helped/came out to see us.
The Gullivers xx
