Gig report: Aidy @ Stockton Underground Festival @ Stockton-On-Tees

Band: Aidy
Venue: The Vault, Stockton-On-Tees
Date: 28/08/11
Audience: Busy, enthusiastic
Set: Make It Happen, Pain In My Heart, Down Like That, Guns, God's Front Porch, Edinburgh, Washing Machine
Notes: This was great fun, as much as I like living around here I'm starting to enjoy gigging out of town more and more these days. It's also nice to be doing gigs like this with Aidy and Dave as, after the tour last month, we're pretty used to each other now so travelling fairly long distances for gigs is never a problem. Got picked up at 8.30am which is a bit early for a Sunday for my liking, and then made the long trip up to Middlesborough. To be honest we made it in pretty good time, just after midday I think. It's nice hitting new places with plenty of time to spare as we had an opportunity to explore the town centre a bit, grab some food and a cheeky pint and browse the ridiculously cheap music shops. After a quick rehearsal in our hotel room a taxi was sent for us by the promoter to get us to the venue, The Vault, which was about ten minutes down the road in Stockton. The Vault is a nice space - it's downstairs, it has a slight wine-bar feel to it but certainly not pretentious, small stage but good fitting for all of the acts booked. The Stockton Underground Festival is the first of it's kind - and the promoter, a young chap called Matt, did an outstanding job - he seemed stressed for most of it but he didn't need to be, he'd booked some excellent bands and everyone seemed to be enjoying it. I like being in the out-of-town band, there's a certain kudos about it sometimes, the fact that we were willing to travel for hours to play at their event. We were treated so well - probably the best hospitality we've had anywhere this year, with our drinks requirements met (including cans of carbonated caffeine for me), there was just a sense that we were being looked after. Three hours, a few complimentary beers and a even a cheeky Jaggerbomb later and we hit the stage at 8pm, on just after the brilliant Broken Broadcast, a band we met in Leeds on the tour. By now the venue was filling up nicely and we played good enough I think, it was one of our safer sets and we all know these songs very well by now, the Aidy trio feels like a well-oiled indie-rock machine. Doing the mailing list run after the gig is always a nice way to meet the audience despite the fact that Aidy pimps out my cuddles (for a while now I've had the nickname of 'Cuddly Paul' whilst in this band, due to the excessive length of my arms), but it's all part of the banter, CD's were sold, new friends were definitely made. The people in Stockton are the friendliest people I've met in a gig situation in a long time. Back to the hotel just after midnight because we were all knackered, probably not as rock 'n' roll as we have been recently, but that was a long, if brilliant day. Up at 7am, back in my little Shepreth pad by midday, was a lovely little jaunt up north to play in front of some lovely people. Wicked.