Guy Lloyd: Man about town Guy on his band’s reunion gig

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In one of my earlier columns, I told you about our old band reforming after 22 years in the rock ’n’ roll wilderness. We had talked about it vaguely for about two years but our decision to reform was made for us, after the untimely death of our drummer back in January.

A quick historical catch-up, for those of you who got sucked in by Brit Pop in the nineties – we were called SOCK and we reigned supreme from 1990-1992 in a place called Newark, 20 miles outside of Nottingham. It was an exciting time. We’d had the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, and now grunge was exploding all over our indie faces.

We picked up on this. The band played loud and I screamed harder and somehow we managed to pick up quite a following, during a time where all we all wanted to do was get drunk and jump around like loons (the band and the audience!). In October 1992, SOCK played its last ever gig to a broken and tearful audience.

Anyway, 22 years on, we decided to press ahead with the reunion and put on a gig in the heart of the East Midlands. Our drummer’s brother picked up the sticks and the rest of the band, now living in all four corners of the country, reconvened for a rehearsal – the first time we’d been in a room together for more than two decades.

Two weeks later we travelled up for the gig, knowing we had sold a lot of tickets and that we had one more day left to rehearse and put on a show worth the £7.50 ticket price (you can see Suede for cheaper).

This was not made easier the day before the gig, when the venue called us to say there was no electricity and travellers had moved on to the site.

“Think Spinal Tap, but on a much smaller scale”

We carried on rehearsing, while taking calls on the developing situation, knowing that if we cancelled we would probably never have this opportunity again. We also had friends coming from as far as Barcelona and Edinburgh and didn’t want to let people down. It was all getting very tense and dramatic. Think Spinal Tap, but on a much smaller scale.

To cut a long story short, the venue hired a generator the size of a shed and the police gently moved in on the travellers. Game on. We had a show! And as you’ll see by the photo, we didn’t hold back. You had to be there, but in short, we smashed it. We even gained some new fans, demanding to know when the next gig was and if they could buy a CD.

(They could buy a CD, but it wouldn’t be ours, as we didn’t have one.) In the process of having a ridiculous amount of fun, we also raised £800 for the British Heart Foundation. Our drummer would have been proud.

And our next gig? Watch this space, Brighton …

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