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Gig / Jam 1

We played our first show as a three piece instrumental band at

The Vaults, Malpas

Wednesday 24th June 2015.

Paul Shone - Guitar

Richard Larkum - Bass

Ben Wojda - Drums

We were unannounced.

We were unrehearsed.

We had not actually played together as a band.

Richard & Paul Jammed through Guitar Parts on Tuesday 9th June & Tuesday 23rd June

We rocked up on the evening and did it on house amps and drums

Know Your Enemy - Rage Against The Machine

Custard Pie - Led Zeppelin

The Rover - Led Zeppelin

Back In Black - AC/DC

Screamager - Therapy?

Creeping Death - Metallica

Plus lots of jammed songs/riffs after:

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit / In Bloom

Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name / Bullet In The Head / Bombtrack / Wake Up / Freedom

Metallica - Enter Sandman / Master Of Puppets / For Whom The Bell Tolls

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Higher Ground

Richard's Memories:

Paul had been helping out Alan from The Vaults to curate a house backline [Drums/Amps/Guitars] for the pub over a period of a few months. As the backline became usable, so the drunken jams began. Paul would chat to me about these 'jams'. His main frustration was that he was the only one with any music knowledge or real ability. And in his words, couldn't face playing bad versions of Seven Nation Army any more. So the discussions started to turn towards whether we could go and jam something out. Show them how its done.

At this point in time we were jamming sporadically with Ben. We'd tracked a few drum tracks with him and perhaps a jam or two, but our musical relationship was still in it's infancy. Me and Paul put together a plan for the three of us to jam one night in the Vaults. We came up with a few songs we could jam, put it to Ben and locked in a date.

Now, the vibe was loose. It was gonna be instrumental. It was gonna be unpolished, mainly because Me and Paul had 2 nights figuring out parts in the studio and Ben learnt all the tracks at home. We never had chance to actually jam it out together before the night.

So on the night we all rocked up. Essentially unannounced. Only the 3 of us and Al knew it was happening. We used house amps and drums, just brought our own guitars, pedals and cymbals

And so it happened, loose, vibey and fun. I think you can definitely say this was the real cementing of Ben into thebigrockroom fold. It felt good and it felt natural. After our 'rehearsed' set of 6 songs. We then just carried on jamming through any riffs/songs we all collectively had any vague idea how to play. The vibe was relaxed. Everyone had fun. We proved the system worked/idea worked.

And after the dust settled the next idea was born..... TBC

Paul's Memories:

The vaults had been steadily building up a jam room under my auspices for some time but apart from sporadic jams with people who couldn't play, it wasn't being used.

It was about time some dudes who knew how to play got up there. The main reason I believe the jam happened was to work out whether a gig was feasible, it was proven that it was in my opinion. Don't recall who was there or if anybody dug it particularly, apart from Ben Holden who intervened with some karate kicks during a rage tune (the video I believe bears this out).

I'd definitely call it a jam not a gig as it was the first time we'd played together I think? That was the other issue, Rich and I hadn't played with anybody else but each other for years, could we get a cohesive band together? I personally felt that we could after this jam.

I also remember building that A/B pedal to utilise both of the amps knocking around in the pub for a bigger sound, it worked!

For the little preparation (zero) and spurious song list which we added to ad hoc on the night, I thought we sounded great!

Ben's Memories:

Feeling, firstly nervous as quite literally first ever jam with the guys. 1-2 songs in felt right at home and enjoyed the whole evening (even with my glaring errors). We even had two people singing along and head banging at one point so we were doing something right!

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