19/2/2009 Cherry Brakewells @ Belushi's

Subject	Cherry Brakewells @ Belushi's
PostedDate	2/19/2009
	After a miserable and stressful week I decide I've had enough of staying in on my own. It's Friday night and I need to get out of the house, see some friends, enjoy some live music, and have a few drinks to take my mind off recent events. Two excellent bands I know are playing in Camden, and the timings should allow be to get to see both even though they are playing at different venues. Well that was the plan anyway. Then I find out that Men & Gods are playing at the Dublin Castle at 9.30 instead of at 9.00 as I was expecting - this complicates matters. However, it all becomes academic as due to some getting some important phone calls I leave the house much later than planned and don't actually arrive in Camden until well after 10.00. Men & Gods have almost certainly finished their set by the time I'm in the area, so I head straight for Belushi's By the time I get to Belushi's the wonderful Cherry Brakewells are already well into their set. The place turns out to be not as bad as I expected - no real ales or Newcastle Brown, but reasonable prices and not a bad atmosphere. Free to get in as well, which no doubt helped contribute to the place being fairly full. The crowd, combined with my late arrival and the poor lighting which hindered the autofocus on my battered camera stopped me getting any good pictures. The band sounded great though. As usual, the band were very well received by the crowd - quite a lot of whom were obviously here to see the Cherry Brakewells rather than just being random punters. Unfortunately their set was over all too soon, although I think I caught over half of it. They were good enough to make it worth the effort of getting to Camden though. After saying hello to the girls I decided to head to the Dublin Castle. I was pleased to find that although I had missed Men & Gods set, the band were still there - so at least I managed to have a chat and a drink or two with them after. Then, a bit later we ended up at bass player Minz's place, and a while after that he led us on a small hours walk through the streets of Camden which ended up with being at the birthday party of a well known drummer who used to be in a band who were massive for a while. By a strange coincidence I had bumped into that band's original bass player earlier in the evening as well. Certainly an interesting night!