Priors Inn in Bury St.Edmunds is a great venue. It’s
kinda in the middle of some sort of huge housing estate, but when we
played in Newmarket at the Palminos that was a recipie for one of the
best gigs we’ve ever done. We arrived 20 minutes late at 6.20pm but
the other band wasn’t there yet. When we went in we found a huge PA
that had been set up, complete with a mixing desk large enough to control
a space shuttle launch. Only problem was that apparently for the Priors
Inn it’s fairly normal for the sound engineer to set up the pa
then naff off home! So we spent two hours staring at the knobs on the
Priors Inn mixing desk in a style akin to a hedgehog attempting to mate
with a balloon. We saw lots of scary buttons that said things like ‘phantom
power’, fearing blowing up something expensive or accidentally summoning
a phantom super hero we tentatively prodded at various buttons whilst
I free styled over a dead microphone.
Eventually we got some sort of sound out of the thing and sat back and
awaited the crowds of fans. I fell asleep. The set we played was technically
great, but our audience consisted of half the band that went on first
and the occasional bunch of estate kids staring through the windows
pissing themselves. We managed to cram in a record number of lewd probing
jokes so you could say we developed our ‘art’. My favourite joke of
the evening was when Graham was explaining to the crowd that probing
was available whatever your sexual preference. I declared that I was
Metrosexual,
“so you only have sex underground?” asked Graham,
“nah, metro, like the car” I replied.
The Great thing about being in ZEEB?
is that we always have a good time, no matter what the environment,
the size of the crowd or the level of our alcohol intake. At the end
of the set Graham and I laid perfectly still on the floor for five or
ten minutes, which had the effect of amusing then confusing people.
Some cavalier in the crowd decided to approach me and do god knows what
to me, when he got within a couple of feet I exploded to my feet hitting
the neck of my bass making a great CRASHSIISHHSSSPPP, causing the bloke
approaching me to leap back a good couple of feet and cause his mates
to start pissing themselves with laughter! I bounded across the empty
room to the relative comfort of the men’s toilets, and join Dom and
Graham who were already half way through returning to normality (getting
civilian clothes back on). We’ve gotten changed in men’s toilets all
over East Anglia, but the Priors Inn in Bury St.Edmunds had remarkably
clean bogs! As is usual though, someone walked in while we were all
stood in our skids, ah, thier look of horror will stay with me forever,
tee hee! The photo below was taken just after I’d gotten dressed and
toweled down, imagine what I looked like as soon as I’d come off stage!
It was only later in a kebab shop that Graham decided to let me know
that some of the dye had come out of my mask and my face was covered
in blue blotches!
The other great thing about our band is that we always find some little
added bonus way to have fun when playing gigs, this time it was the
swings!
So overall I’d really recommend playing thePriors Inn at
Bury St.Edmunds, it’s great venue and if you play for
a promoter that can get people though the door then you’ll have great
time! We did actually get paid for this show, and on enquiring about
the possibility of further bookings the landlady informed us she’s rather
get a blues or covers band, so sorry if we spoilt it for everyone
Last Updated on February 18, 2023
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