the World of Verbal Warning 22.11.2010

We've had a couple of gigs since my last blog, first up was the Olympic in Draycott, and that bought us down to earth with a bump after the Greyhound gig, a very small crowd, in fact apart from the 10 or so Warning faithful the pub was practically empty, still we tried to put on our usual enthusiastic show with Drummer Boy kicking his kit over at the end (for only the second time). The highlight of the evening was the chant of "You fat bastard" as Singer Boy rather unwisely decided to change his T shirt after the gig in front of everyone. The landlord enjoyed Nellie the Elephant and wants to book us again, 29th January is looking a possible date.Last Friday we were supporting Sham 69 at the Old Bell in Derby which turned out to be an enjoyable night for everyone, we were first on which raised concerns about whether anyone would actually be there, having suffered a similar fate at the Mill in Mansfield, but our fears were unjustified as the place was a nearly full when we went on for our 35 minute slot, and it all went well with lots of compliments afterwards. No Jimmy Pursey in Sham but I still thoroughly enjoyed it, I've got a soft spot for Sham anyway because it was the first punk gig I ever went to back in the mists of time, and I was able to sink a few pints as well having set the stage by scrounging lifts off Guitar Boy and Singer Boy, thanks lads.No gigs now until 20th December, which is the first date our Christmas tour, 3 gigs in 7 days, ROCK AND ROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.

the World of Verbal Warning 4.10.2010

If it carries on like this I'm going to have to stop doing this blog, it gets really boring when nothing goes wrong, the Greyhound seems to have been our best gig yet, the place was rocking with a great crowd singing along to the songs, even our own! and we sold loads of Cd's and T shirts. We started off with Monster Mash, especially learnt for Halloween and to get into the swing of things we all bought masks to wear, it frightened everybody to death when we took them off. Backing Vocals proved a problem, I had to do a crib sheet because they altered every chorus, what a waste of time, with the masks on our backing vocals were totally inaudable, watch the phone video on facebook, still we made the effort. We must have been good Paul, the landlord bought us all a pint afterwards, just hope the rest of the band don't expect all Paul's to be as generous.
Next gig is at the Olympic in Draycott 13th November.

the World of Verbal Warning 20.10.2010

The Nottingham Beer Festival turned into a rollercoaster ride, but I think we managed to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat in the end. We had a disastrous start, after the traditional shout of “1234” we launched into Blitzkrieg Bop, I was just thinking "Guitar Boy's quiet" and then it dawned on me that he was very very quiet. So we stopped and Guitar Boy played about with his leads, no sniggering at the back please, and he got a satisfying kerrang noise from his speaker, right we're ready to rock now, “1234”, silence from the guitar, ok swap the lead, kerrang from the speaker, “1234”, silence from the guitar, the sound engineer came on stage and they swapped amps, kerrang from the speaker, “1234”, silence from the guitar, I’m standing thinking “bloody hell, there by the grace of God and all that, I’m glad this isn’t happening to me” and even Singer Boy’s running out of things to say. Only one thing left to do swap guitars, kerrang from the speaker, “1234”, for the final time thankfully, and away we went everything firing on all cylinders. Now as you can imagine concentration levels were not good by this time and we made a right pig’s ear of Teenage Kicks, fortunately it didn't get any worse after that, there were one or two more errors but to paraphrase Basil Fawlty “I think we got away with those”. From Should I Stay or Should I Go midway through the first set to the end the place was rocking, when I asked Wendy Verbette what the backing vocals were like she said “Don’t know couldn’t hear them for the crowd singing along” and we got the loudest shout I’ve heard for an encore, finishing off with 500 Miles and Nellie the Elephant. This was probably the biggest crowd we’ve played too, and we like to think we did our bit to make this year’s Nottingham Beer Festival the most successful ever.
See you all at the Greyhound on the 30th October

the World of Verbal Warning 28.9.2010

Well we had a 'smash it up' time at the Stumble Inn on Friday night. Our overly enthusiastic Punkette turned up again, she was even dancing to the sound check! No bubble wrap trousers this time though. But she did manage to last the whole gig this time, jumping around and grabbing microphones, unfortunately our equipment doesn't seem to be designed to withstand such treatment, we finished the gig with one PA speaker and one microphone knocked out, nothing serious as it happens, just leads giving way under the strain, you could say it was a proper punk rock gig, and most of the crowd seem to enjoy the extra entertainment that was on offer. In fact we earned ourselves some kudos points for carrying on like the troopers we are, mind you I couldn’t really do anything else after publicly slagging off Jake Burns for throwing a hissy fit because somebody threw some beer over him during a SLF gig at Rock City .I was a little concerned that the Stumble might not have us back again if they thought we were attracting a overly boisterous crowd but Martin the landlord gave us an extra 20 quid and promised to fix us up another date, bless him.
Next gig could be a big one if it doesn’t rain, it’s the Nottingham Beer Festival in the Castle grounds.

the World of Verbal Warning 6.9.2010

Phew, that was a busy week, first off, last Saturday we were in Draycott again doing a gig as Fightback’s guests at the Coach and Horses, everything went off smoothly this time, no sharing the bar with a swing covers band as happened last time we did a gig with them at the Melbourne Hotel, our Canadian ‘backing singer’ turned up again, this time in a thong and bubble wrap trousers, which caused something of a stir, very Punk Rock though, Singer Boy got off lightly this time, on this occasion he was only ‘assisted’ on vocals a couple of times. We played the Clash’s Complete Control for the first time, ..Holiday.. in ....Cambodia.... had a rare outing which went down particularly well and Fightback shared the fee with us which was good of them.
On Wednesday we finally did our MFN gig, we thought we would be in the bar, but it was such a pleasant evening and a good turnout of bikers was expected that it was moved to the main ball. Unlike Guitar Boy I have to say I didn’t enjoy it that much, the sound on stage was fine on the sound check but when we did the actual gig my bass was booming all over the place, and Guitar Boy sounded like he was using a phaser to me, but apparently it sounded ok at the back of the room which is where most people were standing. Drummer Boy got a request for a signed drum stick and Guitar Boy got a request for a pick, so we made some new friends. Highlight of the evening was Drummer Boy falling off the drum riser and finishing up flat on his face on the stage, well highlight for the rest of us, not sure about Drummer Boy though, but it did make a pleasant change from me being the fall guy. Dave and Wayne a couple of members of the original Verbal Warning were also there for a bit of reminiscing.
Finally, on Friday night we had an away day at the Cherry Tree in Kettering, I thoroughly enjoyed the gig, got a really good sound where I was standing, and sounded good in the crowd too, according to Wendy Verbette., sold a few CDs and gained some fans on Facebook. Special mention to Adam, who came all the way from Brighton to see us, alright I know his girlfriend lives in Coventry, still a good effort though, and Keith for not going to see Goldblade, and his lad for backing vocals on I Fought the Law.
Few weeks R and R now, next gig at the Stumble in Long Eaton.

the World of Verbal Warning 23.8.2010

Well the Olympic gig at Draycott turned into a cracker, a steaming hot night and a small packed bar meant we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Claire Bear, Janet Verbette's daughter, was back from China and bought along seven pissed up dancing friends, and we had a young lady who seemed determined to become a backing singer for us, I have to say Singer Boy stuck manfully to his task despite being continually assaulted, and was even bit on the lip at one point, a video of his discomfort has been posted on the band facebook site. The gig nearly ended in disaster before it started when I rather stupidly, and even saying to myself "I shouldn't be putting this pint of blackcurrant juice on top of my amp", put a pint of blackcurrant juice on top of my amp and within seconds had knocked it over covering my amp, the PA amp and Drummer Boy's kit in a sticky red mess, I dived to switch the power off as fast as my old bones would take me and mopped up the mess with Guitar Boy's sweat towel as best I could before tentatively switching the power back on just as Drummer Boy was sorting his sticks out which, too me, sounded remarkable like crackling electricity, after a heart stopping moment everything seemed to be ok. We managed to debut 4 new cover versions all of which went well, when you're finishing a gig to a pissed up pub you can't really go wrong with Nellie the Elephant can you? We're back in Draycott this Saturday with Fightback at the Coach and Horses.

the World of Verbal Warning 16.8.2010

We have just returned from our annual trip to the Blyth Power ashes which was this year held in Norfolk .
We arrived after a 6 hour journey thanks to a gridlocked Grantham, a Pub stop, and the usual Kings Lynn traffic mayhem to rather wet weather, but it did improve on Saturday.
I have another holiday tip to go with my “make sure you don’t pack 2 left footed baseball boots ”. If you wake up in the middle of the night and find you’re lying on the floor because the airbed’s got a hole in it, don’t inflate it in the car to keep the noise of the pump from waking everybody up because although it is relatively easy to get a deflated airbed into a car it’s not quite as easy to get it out again once it’s been filled with air.
Helen Verbett and Drummer Boy came to my rescue for the second night as they had a spare airbed for me to use. Helen is the band lifeboat, as whatever you’ve forgotten to bring just ask Helen at it’s produced in an instant, from bottle openers to, err, spare airbeds.
The Goat Inn at Skeyton is a lovely setting with a thatched roof pub, unfortunately the toilet facilities turned rather medieval as well, a brand new toilet/ shower block looked promising but it was fed from a local well which ran out of water by Saturday morning, resulting in no ablutions for 4 hours, causing Singer Boy much distress as he likes to make himself as light as possible before we go on stage if you know what I mean.
The gig itself was bought forward to 12.15pm due to licensing problems, by which time the sun was beating down which meant it was getting a bit sticky in the Marquee where the bands were performing, Guitar Boy decided to wear a black hat for the gig which meant he got hotter than ever, I kept looking across expecting to see a pool of sweat, a black hat and a Gibson SG and not a lot else. Still we got through it, but because of the heat there were as many people outside the tent as in it, don’t blame them, I think I would have probably done the same, we did nearly get an encore, but it was decided there wasn’t enough time, and we did sell a fair amount of merchandise.
We’ve got the Olympic at Draycott this Friday, so it’s all go.