The First Gig: Fear and Loathing in the Movie Room
Ten o'clock arrived.
Twenty five minutes later it was over, set not completed, Snotty off to emergency, Kirt listening to a very unimpressed and unhappy
head of student security in-tone: "well this is what happens when you play punk rock!!" From the moment Da Slyme went on it
was pure pandemonium. Cheap beer being sprayed over the band, bottles sometimes full, lobbed past their heads. Later when the small
wall of amps were removed, a waft of broken glass and other debris was revealed behind where we played. The inaugural rubble! We were spared this knowledge
of so much flying debris by the obligatory dark shades we all wore.
About 2/3 of the way through this short set, Stig became involved in a confrontation with several "fans" at a front table who were intent that he should drown in beer. This resulted in a trip to the hospital the following morning with a badly swollen foot after kicking at the chairs and tables of his tormentors. We blasted through the set until finally one of us was down in the glass and beer....
Snotty,
because he made the mistake of wearing a rather glamish pair of panty hose over his punk attire. He'd neglected to remove the feet
of said hosiery and as a consequence slipped into the waiting covering of broken glass. Eleven stitches later, sewn only after a nurse
demanded that he first remove his pantyhose as a prerequisite to treatment, he was whole again. One song remained unsung out of the
set. It was "As Far As We're Concerned"; which stated what was a put down of the whole punk thing and was intended to be
the band's swan-song.
Aside from our obvious wounds and newfound wisdom ("we better not do this again- we'll be killed"), the whole thing
was a success... the station made a few bucks. By early the following week, two things were resolved: first that we would record the
set for posterity the following weekend and that secondly, that would be IT for the band. A familiar story by now. So it was that on
the following Saturday a four track recording was made, mixed to cassette, and copies made for band souvenirs. This recording taken
directly from the cassette mix down is what comprises the first side of Da Slyme's double album released two years later. It also
is the same as the original set of the Feb. 3 show excepting the last song which we didn't get to. The band has never played that song publicly.
The onslaught on the previous week did not escape the watchful eye of the local media and was reported on in the NEWFOUNDLAND HERALD
