I am on my way to alcoholism.

There's a wirlwind of birthdays/Tears gigs that have kepted me well watered. Or vodkaed.

Firstly, the Tears played a "small" show at HMV last Monday to mark the release of their gorgeous little album. 400 people or so showed up, and I had a few drunks with one of the forum members after.

Then on Wednesday Andreea, Freddie, Emiliano and myself went to the Tears' Xfm Session gig at the Islington Carling Academy. We got there at 7:30 but the band didn't get started until 2 hours after that. Half the audience was well pissed by then as there was nothing else to do in the meantime but drink.

It made for a rowdy and memorable evening The band played beautifully and furiously. There were a lot of bastards in the audience, as the tickets were free from radio station contests, so some of the punters I think were expecting suede. They were disappointed, but I think they should have been very impressed by the new band.

The band handled it all very well. Brett is rather witty and as I've mentioned before, rather scary. He told the people at the back who were talking during a very intense song to fuck off (and got a rousing cheer from the rest of the audience.) Bernard threatened to hit a man with his guitar for throwing gum at him.

Freddie and I later met the bastard on the bus home. He claimed he chucked the gum in response to Bernard spraying the audience with red wine. Well, whatever, it's a gig. Bands tend to throw liquid at the audience. We get over it.



Highlights of the night were The Asylum, Refugees, and Song for the Migrant worker. I also did meet several lovely people there.