Ah, The Zico Chain. Great band, great fish n chips, great taxidermists.... What more can I say? I've just gotten back from the gig. (Even though technically I never saw any of it.) It's a long story, which i'm about to explain - so yay!
We got to the venue (Coventry Colluseum or something like that) at about 6:00 and we weren't sure where The Zico Chain were (our plan was to just find them and say hey, like they told us to) and as we were walking along the road to the back entrance of the club, a blue van pulled up next to us and we noticed Ollie (the drummer) was driving! Much waving was followed, ehehe, and not just by us.
We stood by watching as they met the people that ran the club and then Ollie came over like; "Hey guys! Great to see you!" And we explained how we didn't think we would be this early because we got lost O_o. Then he went to look inside the club and Chris (the lead singer) came over and shook our hands all; "Hey guys, great video it was so wicked!" That was pretty cool. We didn't see Paul (guitarist) for ages though, but he was there!
Then The Zico Chain went inside the club and we ended up just following them inside. The club was really cool it had posters all over the walls of things like Motorhead, The White Stripes, Quadrophenia and this really shmexy Sex Pistols one that I wanted to steal. Me and Jamie stood against the wall facing the door watching The Zico Chain unload their equipment. I felt really bad for not helping though so I held the door open for them ^^.
Chris carried in a box full of T-Shirts, so me and Jamie inquired how much they were (along with the album) and Ollie was standing nearby, he just looked up and was like "Oh, you can have an album each for free! I can't do that with the t-shirts though, they're £12 each!" We didn't mind though, we had a ton of money to spend. We kept asking what time The Zico Chain were coming on and they weren't sure themselves.
Then later after all the equipment had been set up and the amp that had been broken, fixed.. Ollie pulled up a chair and sat near me and Jamie munching on a packet of crisps and we chatted about stuff (like Kerrang loving The Zico Chain, their gig in London with Fall Of Troy were all their equipment broke, Tasha getting in contact with them over Myspace (haha)) and then Chris walked over looking kind of solemn and said "We're on at midnight."
And Ollie went all wide-eyed and was like; "WHAT?! Fucking hell.."
And me and Jamie looked at each other and said; "Oh... We won't be able to stay that long, Jamie's dad has to get up at 6 tomorrow so we can't stay really late."
Ollie's face FELL. He looked really gutted and that was sooo sweet! I guess me and Jamie looked kind of gutted to 'cause Chris and Ollie were like; "I'm so so sorry guys, I can't believe that, i'm really sorry!" It was cool though, 'cause we'd been hanging out with them for hours, and we could stay for a little while longer. Paul came over finally and explained mischieviously about how in their dressing room he'd found haribo, soft drinks and 4 bottles of vodka under the sink.. And now the 4 bottles of vodka had strangely disappeared. Then a little while later a half empty bottle of vodka appeared next to their stuff, hehe.
There was not much to do whilst they were waiting for their soundcheck. Ollie sat leaning on the sound booth texting on his phone and Chris was above him in the sound booth. Eventually we noticed Chris leaning down over Ollie with a paperclip, which he successfully managed to hang in Ollie's hair (he has a curly afro thing) without Ollie noticing. Me and Jamie were in stitches, but we were trying to be quiet as Chris picked up a biro and attempted to do the same again. Ollie noticed me and Jamie trying to look nonchalont and immediately got suspicious. Chris was so close to getting the pen to stay in before Ollie noticed though, it was so funny. Then Ollie couldn't find the paperclip in his hair! It got lost in his head, hahah. Chris commented on how he'd managed to get 16 coat hangers in their the other day.
Then I was looking through my phone and realised I had some pictures and a video of them from when they played The Charlotte last year. Chris took one look at the pic of him and was like; "Argh! What's wrong with my body there? I look like He-Man!" (Actually, he looks like Kurt Cobain) and that started a big discussion about He-Man between Chris and Ollie, with us laughing a lot because Chris thought his cat or whatever was called Scaredy-Cat.
Then Ollie was still complaining about having to go on at midnight and he turned to us and was like ; "Next time we're in Leicester or somewhere near there, we'll be sure to give you passes - and not play at midnight!"
Eventually, 2 packets of crisps, 2 snickers and a couple of beers for Ollie, later the guys decided to do their soundcheck. Before they climbed on stage Chris looked round at Ollie and Paul and said; "Seeing as these guys can't stay for the gig, you wanna play some extra stuff for them in the soundcheck?" and they did, and it was very cool of them! They played Social Suicide, 1-2-3-4, Rollover and The Lonely Ones. They were very good, even though they were only warming up. Sound check was hilarious. It involved Chris and Paul standing in front of their microphones going "Wah.. Waaah... WAAAAH.... WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" And then Chris tried to eat his microphone O_o. Then Ollie was testing his drums and Chris had a drumstick from somewhere and started hitting the cymbal before Ollie could.
When they came off they almost had to rush away to do an interview, and that was when me and Jamie decided to go. But before we did they got a picture with us and gave us some free albums. Then Ollie guided us over to their roadie guy and was like "get some shirts for these guys!" So we got a free album and a free shirt each! Then Chris walked over and was like "Have a copy of our setlists guys!" It was cool, and we didn't refuse. As we were about to leave Chris was all; "Hey, make a video for Social Suicide!" And we nodded, with stars in our eyes, hehe. Then it was fun to walk out of the back door of the venue, with The Zico Chain shouting; "BYE GUYS! SEEYA SOON!"
So technically we didn't get to see the gig, but we still got some good photo's from the sound check, and we got to hang out with The Zico Chain for hours. So it still counts in my book ^^.