GORKY'S ZYGOTIC MYNCI at THE FLEECE AND FIRKIN,
SEPT 30 1998
'Ello 'ello, what have we here? Euros sat down on a chair playing John's bass and John playing his keyboard? What on earth is going on? Everyone except Megan is doing something different and Richard isn't there at all (replaced with someone in a dodgy Stussy top, but his playing was faultless so who cares).
Just when you think Gorky's are hitting the big time and not selling their T- shirts themselves, are getting stage props and having badges and everything you find out that Mercury have dumped them. Bastards.
Ignorant, shortsighted, fuckwitted, bastards. Not commercially viable seems to be being bandied about. They do sell records, maybe not very many but
a) they are amazing and should be held tightly and treasured
b) they are selling more and more with each new thing they bring out
c) they have a very dedicated fan base which can only be a good thing (cult of Richey type images aside)
Maybe Richard is ill and stressed. The band didn't look too frazzled or like how you would expect a band to look who have had to cancel half of their tour and been thrown out on their ear. They did look very young though. I was watching Euros before he came on stage and he looked ever so wee and slight, Megan too, but Euros especially. He looked a tad pissed off as well to start with, but not as pissed off as he'd looked earlier in the evening when my friend nearly tripped him up when were causing an obstruction by sitting on the floor. John had his Broadcast T- shirt on, just for a change, and yes, someone yelled Peanut Dispenser to which Euros replied "no sorry I can't do that one" in a mildly amused and When Are You Going To Stop Asking For That Bloody Song type way. The set seemed exceedingly short, probably because I wasn't being squashed to death and having trouble breathing due to the distinct lack of any kind of moshpit. Merched got a few heads snapping back and forth, as did Meirion Wyllt and parts of Heart Of Kentucky but on the whole the crowd were fairly demure. I had to restrain myself from singing along (all of the time) because I looked a twat, but it was a very difficult thing to do. After Not Yet Euros introduced the band with his usual mutterings that you can only really hear if you concentrate as "we are Gorky's Zygotic Mynci" as though everyone had infact bought their tickets by mistake, or possibly for Olivia Tremor Control (who by the way were not good, a little boring except for when they filtered in funny sound effect things but they didn't do that very much.) Yes, anyway. He seemed to be in a bit of a dither saying this first song is called The Tidal Wave, oh that was the first one, that was not yet, but this is now - you get the picture and then muddling up the set order later on with Heywood Lanes and The Poor Ditching Boy, a beautiful cover of a Richard Thompson song which he seemed quite sheepish about and apologised for playing.

John got through a large number of different guitars over the course of the evening, and even the other Euros had two different drum kits, welt aright, one was a solitary steel drum. Out of a set of 1 2 songs six were from Gorky 5 (Not Yet, Hush The Warmth, Let's Get Together, Sweet Johnny, The Tidal Wave, and Catrin) and the rest from Barafundle (Diamond Dew, Meirion Wyilt, and Heywood Lanes) bar Heart of Kent, as it says on my set list (yeay finally got one. Tenth time lucky), Merched... and the aforementioned Poor Ditching Boy. Sweet Johnny was fantastic and had Euros clicking his fingers into his mic at the start and removing both feet from the ground for large bits of it. I was trying to take some photos of them but they all move around a lot in either a sort of swayey way (Megan, and sometimes John) or a frenzied jumping and disjointed, but perfectly in time way (Euros), hence why these aren't great. I'm not going to take pictures again, I say now, but possibly I will, as Euros looked SO pissed off when I did one at the start. The spazz out section for Sweet Johnny certainly spazzed out with the band going mental making noise and banging on their respective instruments as hard as they possibly could without breaking them and then back into it's lovely tune. Olivia TC had sort of tried something similar earlier but it didn't work. Sweet Johnny really worked last night. Really worked. The highlight of the evening had to be Hush The Warmth though.

Maybe.

Oh I don't know, Poor Ditching Boy was pretty amazing too, infact it was all incredible, but Hush The Warmth is such a great song, easily my favourite on Gorky 5. Euros sang the words in a different order to the album version (NB. I have restrained myself from saying he got the words wrong, because blatantly he can do what he likes with them because they are his) and exchanged grins with John in a conspiratorial manner, but it really kicked ass.

I fucking hate Mercury- Hush The Warmth was going to be the next single, AND to make it even worse they were thinking of backing it with Poor Ditching Boy. The night came to an end all too soon with Heart of Kentucky and they didn't play an encore which I have rather come to expect of Gorky's, which isn't just me taking them for granted as I have seen John stash his trombone by his side of the stage, follow the set list meticulously, then play an encore with a song that demands it's usage. Whether they were tired or the Fleece were being stringent I don't know. People were clapping for ages, but alas it was not to be.

If you don't do anything else with the rest of your life go and see Gorky's live when they next go on tour because they are just incredible.

(WARNING: pyschophantism doesn't end here).

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