Gig report: Flaming June @ Club Uniquity, Somerlayton

Band: Flaming June
Venue: Club Uniquity, Somerlayton
Date: 29/07/11
Audience: Packed, enthusiastic
Set: Rejoice, You Do Moody So Well, Nerves Of Steel, I Know What It's Like, The Insane Ex-Girlfriend Parade, Rumplestiltskin, Wednesdays & Weekends.
Notes: I'm knackered, that was a long night. Didn't realise Somerlayton was that far away, but thanks to my brilliant navigator (Mr. Steve Megson) we arrived in reasonable time. Club Uniquity is a great venue - it's a barn at the back of a popular pub, it's decor suggests individuality, warmth, and the flashing lights with smoke machine on stage suggests excitement. Whatever, it's far from the average run on the mill venue, which instantly made me happy to have made the journey, there's too many clone venues around at the moment, so even if I had to drive through three counties to get there I was very happy to play tonight. We were the fourth band on out of five, it was all slightly rushed, it was all very hot, the venue was packed with a genuinely enthusiastic audience who wanted to listen to live music. Despite a couple issues with the sound at first (the danger of doing line-checks instead of soundchecks) by the third track we seemed more comfortable. Aware of the time constraints we had to be more fiery than ever, I use the word fiery a lot when describing Flaming June, but FJ are a very consistent band - tonight we bashed out the songs, they went down very well with the really nice crowd. 'I Know What It's Like' was genuinely piogniant tonight, even the people chatting at the back of the room went quiet for that; in a situation where we were having to play quickly and keep their attention I felt it's inclusion in the set was a brave one but it worked a treat, I know it's a regular track in the setlist but tonight it took the whole performance to a different level and after that we we seemed really comfortable. A good night, a long drive, and I've still got tomorrow's (well, today's now I guess) big gig constantly at the back of my mind, and if it was a rubbish gig in front of 4 people I would have been annoyed but it wasn't, it was top-drawer at times, I'd like to go back there at some point.