Ahoy there matey! It’s those pesky LYs…

On Saturday night we performed for Her Majesty’s Ambassador and six hundred esteemed guests at The Queen’s BIrthday Ball in Seoul, South Korea. The theme for the evening was classic 1930s cruise ship glamour, and in honour of this

This is definitely the most unusual stage we’ve played on. I mean, we’ve done some bizarre gigs (that crèche we headlined at in Peterborough springs immediately to mind, along with the cow shed in Belgium – complete with massive cow) but emerging from inside a cruise-liner bearing the legend “Queen Elizabeth” definitely takes the biscuit.

After the show I had a chat with the lady behind the idea and she explained she’d had many sleepless nights worrying about how the ship would turn out when it appeared on the day. She said that it had ended up being much bigger than she’d anticipated. I replied that she should thank her lucky stars – at least it didn’t come out unexpectedly tiny. They could have had a serious case of Stonehenge on their hands (a la the famous scene in Spinal Tap in which a mix-up over feet and inches results in the dramatic lowering onto the stage of a model of Stonehenge so small that “it was in danger of being crushed by the dwarves”).

This happened to us once. Years ago we got our first big gig at a festival supporting The Levellers. which had turned out to be just slightly larger than a pair of men’s pants. At least pants could conceivably have been read as an anarchic gesture. This just looked like a failed art A-level project.

On Saturday night we performed for Her Majesty’s Ambassador and six hundred esteemed guests at The Queen’s Birthday Ball in Seoul, South Korea. The theme for the evening was classic 1930s cruise ship glamour and, in honour of this, we performed our set inside an enormous scale model of a vintage seafaring vessel, which opened up dramatically to reveal us inside.

This is definitely the most unusual stage we’ve played on. I mean, we’ve done some bizarre gigs (that crèche we headlined at in Peterborough springs immediately to mind, along with the cow shed in Belgium) but emerging from inside a cruise-liner bearing the legend “Queen Elizabeth” definitely takes the biscuit.

After the show I had a chat with the lady behind the idea and she explained she’d had many sleepless nights worrying about how the ship would turn out when it appeared on the day. She said that it had ended up being much bigger than she’d anticipated. I replied that she should thank her lucky stars – at least it didn’t come out unexpectedly tiny. They could have had a serious case of Stonehenge on their hands (for reference, see the famous scene in Spinal Tap in which a mix-up over feet and inches results in the dramatic lowering onto the stage of a model of Stonehenge so small that “it was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf”).

This happened to us once. Years ago we got our first big gig at a festival supporting The Levellers. Keen to make the most of the exposure, we had a banner made bearing our name and website address. In our innocence we decided that three-feet long by one-foot wide would be a sufficient size for the job, although when we picked up the banner from the shop and unwrapped it from its little sheath, it turned out to be only slightly larger than a pair of men’s pants. At least if we’d hung pants on the stage this could conceivably have been read as an anarchic gesture.

Note to self: in rock ‘n’ roll, bigger is always better…