22/7/2010 Ginger & Guitarmageddon @ Proud Gallery

Subject	Ginger & Guitarmageddon @ Proud Gallery
PostedDate	7/22/2010
	A bit of an unusual gig this one - unfortunately at one of my least favourite venues.  However, it looks like being an interesting night.  Things don't get off to a good start when I arrive at the station to find that the train I was planning to catch has been cancelled, and it's about 40 minutes before the next one.  My opinion of First Capital Connect takes a dive as I then have to find a bus to High Barnet to catch the tube instead - which of course is much slower and stops at far more stations than the 'proper' train.  I'm not in the best of moods when I eventually arrive in Camden and find that once in the Proud Gallery there are no pass outs. I am captive in a venue I don't like, with a shit overpriced bar that doesn't serve anything I actually want to drink for about two hours before the band I came to see.  To add insult to injury, this venue now has an annoying and totally unwanted attendant in the toilet - which fortunately I won't be having to visit much as I have vowed to avoid the bar after being charged an outrageous price for a bottle of watery Magners on a previous visit.  There are some other bands on before Ginger & Co. As I arrive there is a large partly accoustic outfit with some girl singers playing - they aren't bad actually, but I have no idea who they are. Next is an emo band called 'My Passion' (I think). They are good musicians and put a lot of energy into their performance, but I find them unconvincing and contrived - I bet they had a completely different image before jumping on the emo bandwagon, and no doubt they'll change it again (or their management will) if they haven't 'made it' in a year or so... It's 11.23 before Ginger and Guitarmageddon take to the stage a few minutes later than planned. Quite a few people have turned up to see this band play only their second ever gig (the first being at Download recently) but due to the promoters putting them on stupidly late for a midweek show fans are already having to leave due to last train/work in the morning issues.  The eight (if I counted correctly) piece acoustic(ish) band play a set of Wildhearts classics and are a lot of fun. In spite of a poor sound mix Guitarmageddon really gets people going! The songs in the setlist were all very familiar to Wildhearts fans and included 'I Wanna Go Where The People Go', 'Red Light Green Light', 'Suckerpunch', 'Someone Who Won't Let Me Go', 'TV Tan', '29 x The Pain', 'Sick of drugs', and 'Geordie In Wonderland'. The band consisted of (as far as I can remember) Ginger, Jase Edwards, Rich Jones, Chris Catalyst, Hot Steve, some other guy I didn't know, Tom Spencer (bass) and Denzel on drums. The omnipresent Chris McCormack was present, but to my surprise didn't play. The band played well and looked like they were having fun (Ginger in particular!) in spite of the sound problems. Someone was a bit too enthusiastic with the smoke machine and it never cleared - hence my pictures being even more rubbish than usual as the smoke particules reflected the light from the flash straight back into the camera lens.  The band played for about 40 minutes and it was after midnight when they finished - ensuring I missed the last tube and needed two night buses to get home before having to get at at 6 for work. Great.