London band Ain’t review their best and worst gigs
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. Charles Dickens wrote that in the 1800s about the French Revolution, but it also pretty much perfectly summarises the experience of being a bunch of 20-something-year-olds in a band playing gigs.
It’s almost as if Dickens himself had spent hours upon hours in a splitter van driving from London to Leeds for a 35-minute set at a multi-venue festival, or played a gig to a room full of people who couldn’t be more indifferent towards the music if they tried. But still, there’s nothing quite like it, as with each experience, dreams are made, and truly, bands never know which show will be a flop, but which could be a complete and utter victory.
Ain’t know that well. Despite only having four singles out, the London-based band have become a staple of the city’s scene, gigging around town as much as possible but also spreading their wings to festivals further afield and cities beyond on their first tours. Having worked with Ali Chant, the man behind Dry Cleaning, Yard Act and some of PJ Harvey’s works, the promise in the band’s material is obvious. But the world of live music is a different beast entirely.
It’s all about something more mythical and more elusive – it’s all about the vibe. Some nights, a venue can simply be haunted by a strange energy… others, that same spot will feel golden. As I catch up with the band in Rotterdam during Left Of The Dial, they’re reflecting on exactly that as I pass them and essentially ask them to do my job for me and review their own best and worst gigs.
Ain’t review their best and worst gigs:
BEST
A friendly Scottish crowd
“My favorite gig we’ve ever done will be the one we did in Glasgow when we were on tour with Thus Love,” singer Hanna Baker Darc says.
“It was my first time ever going to Glasgow, and I had, like, no prior expectations, but it was just so weird and wacky and wonderful in the best ways.”
Perfectly exemplifying one of those nights where the energy was just right, this Glasgow show was made golden by the side characters along the way.
“I got into like, a 45 minute conversation with another person who’s, like, as nerdy as me about, like, fashion history. We talked about the history of the tartan, then, like, kilts. So it was great for me,” she continued before stopping starkly at the reflection of the “persistent offers” the band were getting from a lively crowd…
WORST
The Shack Factor
We’ll start with a disclaimer here on behalf of both the band and this writer – we love the Shacklewell Arms. However, anyone who has seen a gig there will be well aware of the strange layout of the stage where some arches essentially forced the drummer into darkness.
“Great venue, but we don’t play well there,” Ain’t are willing to admit as they tell me about what they call the “Shack Factor” – “which is like, however good you thought a gig might be, you’d probably have to take like 10-20% off it, because it just wasn’t.”
They blame the stage cave. “There are so many points in the set where you need to take a cue from Joe on the drums, and you just have to really kind of uncertainly crane your whole neck and body around so you can just see him in his little hidey hole,” guitarist Ed Randall said.
Without the ease of following the drummer, their sets there often feel like they fall apart, leading to the coining of the “Shack Factor” as a label now applied to any set that simply did not feel good.
BEST
A nice cool room
Sometimes, it all comes down to the practicalities of the venue though, rather than the mythical vibe of its crowd.
Bassist Isaac found that as he said of one night in Manchester, “It was in a place called the White Hotel. It was kind of like a big warehouse that they converted into a nightclub slash venue, and there was like a big beam of like a cross in the middle of it.”
The old building in winter leant itself to a rare on-stage coolness, and I mean that in terms of temperature. “That was like the coldest gig in the world as well. Was great. I walked off and I wasn’t sweaty. That was a big plus,” he said.
Hanna also agreed on that one but for another reason of practicality, adding, “It was also a really good gig, because I think that was the first gig we discovered that you can also ask for food on your rider. So when we got snacks, all of us were, like, deeply excited.”
WORST
The headliner mess up
Hanna’s own worst gig came in the form of a lesson learnt – when nervous, don’t get too assumptive. “My one is, like, really personally humiliating,” she said, “I think I probably grew and matured a lot after this incident.”
“We were playing this one gig with False Futures and I’d looked at the poster, but didn’t read it properly, because it had, False Futures at the top, so I assumed they were headlining,” she explained, “I was like, on stage, like, ‘Yeah, I hope you guys are really excited to see False Futures headline tonight!’” They were not, in fact, headlining, and it turns out that the headliners were a little annoyed by the mess up.
“Then the actual headliner came out,” she continued, still shivering. “I can’t remember word for word what they’ve said, because I blocked out of my memory, but they said something like ‘We are not fucking False Futures.’”
With the sense that she wanted to crawl under a rock, she learnt to study posters closer from now on.
BEST
A moment of overexcitement
Good times can also be chaotic ones, everybody knows that. Drummer Joe Lockstone found that out during one of the band’s biggest shows at London’s beloved George Tavern.
“It was cowboy themed, and we all had, like, cowboy hats and stuff on,” he began, which is already a recipe for a good time.
“In our final song, there’s kind a big pause right before the outro kicks in and finishes the rest of the set. And just before that, I just had the overwhelming urge to take my cowboy hat and, like, frisbee it,” he said as if the spirit of rock and roll kidnapped his inhibitions in that moment. Of course, he followed his whims.
Did it work out as well as he expected? No, it didn’t.
“I just put way too much effort into it. It’s just, like, disappeared over the heads of everyone and went into the glasses up at the top of the bar, and then I just couldn’t do anything and had to play the rest of the show,” he concluded, recalling how his failed throw stared at him for the rest of the set as the entire crowd had just seen him fail.
But he can laugh about it now, making even the missed moment become a joyous memory.
