Saturday 21st November

London - Water Rats Theatre.

I was at home, it was more than a year since the CARTER split and I was getting bored of watching daytime TV. I decided that I needed to play a gig. I called Carter's agent and told him that I wanted to play a gig in London on 21st November. He called back two hours later to tell me that he had booked a gig at The Water Rats. He then asked me what the band was like.

I realised that I didn't yet have a band and I only had three songs. I wasn't starting completely from scratch as I had already approached Alain and asked if he would play guitar if I got a band together. So I got straight back on the phone and told him about the gig. He has his own band called ELECTRIC (check them out when you can) and suggested that we ask bass player Andy and drummer Tasha to join us for the gig. This seemed the ideal situation as I would have a ready made band!

I set about writing more songs and arranging the first rehearsal. When we played together for the first time it was really weird for me as I hadn't sung lead vocals in a band since I was 20 (that's a bloody long time). By the end of the rehearsal I knew that Abdoujaparov was going to work and I felt my confidence rising.

Before the next rehearsal I got a phone call from Tasha who said that although she would do the gig as promised, if I could find someone else to do the job it would make her life a lot easier. She had begun working with a band called Shamrock, and they had suddenly found themselves with a hit on their hands. She was on TV every other day and totally exhausted.

After a few seconds of panic, I called up my ex-Carter comrade Ben, who said that he would be delighted to play drums although he said he was pretty rusty and had never played punk rock before.Luckily, he already had a tape of the stuff that I had written so far, so he already knew the songs.

It was great to have Ben around and he fit into the Abdoujaparov sound perfectly. The second rehearsal was even better than the first!

After 3 more rehearsals we were ready, which was a good job as the gig was the next day.

Here we were on the day of the gig. I was woken at 8:30 by the guy who had delivered the hire-van, he wasn't supposed to deliver it until noon, so I was a bit pissed off.

I had to do a few bits and bobs like printing out the setlists and making sure that the guest-list was OK. At noon Ex-Carter roadies Daz and Harry loaded up the equipment and left for the gig. At about 4pm Ben, Alain and myself walked to Brixton Station and hopped the first tube to Kings Cross.

When we arrived at the gig, Daz and Harry were nowhere to be found. They had arrived early and had gone off for something to eat. They arrived about 10 minutes later and we all pitched in to unload the van and to set up the gear on-stage.

The soundcheck went really well, it was great to hear the band at proper gig volume. The sound was fucking great, the engineers really knew what they were doing.

For the next 3 hours we went over to a local pub, had coffee, beer, crisps a few games of pool.

Eventually it was time to return to the venue and to my surprise there was a large queue stretching out from the venue. It was really hard to fight out way to the dressing room through the throngs of hand-shakers and well-wishers. It was great to see everyone though, especially the folks that I had only met over the internet. Jim (Bob) was there and told me to break a leg. With my history of pre-gig injury, that was just asking for trouble.

We watched some of 1st support band Baptiste who I liked, especially their last song. By the time Diamond Fix were on though I was far too nervous to know what was going on. I steadied my nerves with a few bottles of beer and before we knew it, it was time to hop on-stage.

The reception from the crowd was almost overwhelming as I strapped on my guitar and walked over to the unfamiliar centre stage spot. For a split second I was too nervous to even speak, but somehow either the beer or professionalism took over and I started to sing "There's Nobody Less Rock 'N' Roll Than Me". From then on it was easy, I hardly forgot any words at all.

It was so good to be back on-stage, I really felt that I was back home.

The setlist went like this:

There's Nobody Less Rock 'N' Roll Than Me
I Don't Know
Punk Confetti
Aren't We All (Hero)
Loser's Walk
Rose
Birthday
Queen Bitch
Murder On Dalberg Rd
Maria's Umbrella

After the shortish set we were asked back for an encore and had to do two of the songs for the second time as we didn't know any other songs.

After the gig I rested a while and then went out to greet friend and family and to accept their praise ;-). We loaded up the gear and went back to my place were there was much debauchery to be seen.

Thanks to everyone who came to the gig, it was really good to see you all. We'll have to do it again soon.

Cheers love Fruity xxx