Last night's gig

On the face of it, a night of live music on a wet Monday night in Wigan should not have worked. Yet last night at The Swinley, it not only worked, it rocked.

The four bands tore the house down in their own unique, entertaining ways; an enthusiastic and receptive crowd had a great time (at least, the ones I spoke to did!) and, well, let's just say that nobody who was there last night will forget the name 'Wild Wayne' for a while.

Not that the night didn't present its own problems.

After the chaos which ensued whilst I tried to figure out the best way to get all acts set-up on time, we had a leaking pipe which threatened to flood the dancefloor before the whole thing wound up running an hour behind schedule thanks to a certain drummer's nonchalant attitude to getting the hell off the stage.

Still, it just wouldn't be rock 'n' roll if everything ran smoothly, would it? And besides, once the gig was in full flow, it turned into a great night.

Facing Paige kicked things off with their rambunctious indie-rock and were far more critical of themselves than anyone else was after an enjoyable performance.

Short Notice (who really need to get themselves an online presence soon!), despite being fairly new on the scene, picked up a lot of new fans thanks to a tight, delightful set.

Colour Me Blind, who remain one of the most fun-to-watch bands I've seen in a while, entertained with some scorching soul and blistering rock 'n' roll before Wild Wayne from Britain's Got Talent took to the stage and, erm, left everyone pretty much speechless.

Then, finally, it was up to the awesome Chaos Theory to round off the night with some thunderous hard-rock.

All in all then, a good night in which the stresses and annoyances of trying to organise the whole thing on my own were far outweighed by some terrific music.

My thanks also go to Bev for coming down and filming the whole thing, and the wonderful Cat Ashton for photography (and for not telling anyone that I tripped over a wire on stage and nearly fell over).

Hopefully there'll be some photos and videos to show you soon. Until then, here's to the next of these events in Leigh!