First Gig
I was the Bassist in non-legendary rock Cornish Punk band-of-hope "PFE" who failed to make any impact whatsoever on the local music scene in the mid 1990s. If you were in the Falmouth/Truro area at the time, you'd be entirely forgiven for not having noticed us. We lasted 2 gigs.

But Maaaaaan! Those two gigs were awesome. The first one was in the City hall where we opened on someones birthday gig - she'd managed to book about 4 bands, some of which were pretty good. We were to paid 1 pint of beer each.

After a very rock n roll squabble with a reggae band about the running order, we ended up going on first. It was probably fair enough since our entire set was only about 20 minutes and they'd played more gigs than we had. Mind you we fought tooth and nail not go on first as we were crapping ourselves by now.

At the sound check we found ourselves on stage between some massive speaker stacks. The soundman indicated that I should strum the instrument I now felt very uncomfortable holding, for level or something. I played as close to a riff as I could manage (I had taken the bass up in order to be in a band, not through any actual talent, about a month before the gig) and whole world seemed to shake. I then hid in the loo, terrified, with the rest of the band until it was time to go on.

Fortified with Special Brew and the prospect of humiliation (all our friends were coming), we took to the stage a played our first number - King Rocker by Generation X. Worryingly, we all finished at different times. King Rocker is a fairly tight number and we made it sound about as punk as playschool.

But we had grabbed the attention of the crowd (there were about 20 people in the hall by now) and some even started dancing as we tumbled through a couple of rolling stones numbers, something by the pixies and god-knows what else. By the end of the set we were the Red-hot-chilli-fucking-peppers (in our own minds).

We got an encore. By then we'd played everything we knew. So we played King Rocker again and this go we all finished at the same time. The reggae band had a hard job following that! (not).

We split, due to artistic differences, after the next gig.
(Stop, look, listen - Pheeeel. ...most turnin', stormin' sound of soul, Tue 4 Jul 2006, 12:05, Reply)