Wednesday 30 December 2009

Bane 2009 Tour 7"

This is the tour version of the 'Dublin, 11:58 PM' 7" that I wrote about a few weeks ago ( HERE ). This version has a different sleeve and was made for the Bane european tour that took place in late August & early September 2009. I actually think this sleeve is way better than the regular one, but that's a different story. Anyway, even though it was a tour version, they still knocked out two different versions...

Black vinyl, of which there are 120 copies:

Green vinyl, out of 480 copies:

Now, I should have had these way back on 2 September. I went to see Bane play in London on that day, where they were selling these records. However, something went wrong and I only ended up getting the 7"s in mid December. Here's the story...

I arrived at the Camden Underworld in the pissing rain. I wasn't in the mood to go to a show. I pretty much only went because I have been to see Bane every year that they have toured and I wanted to catch up with them. I also knew they would be disappointed if I didn't make it. So I went, but not really feeling that good. But then when I arrived I saw a few people I knew and chatted to them, and things kinda turned around. I guess you could say I had a good time.

I also got given a record by Sheep. He gave me a 12" of his old band, Honour Among Thieves. I'd seen the band a couple of times. I thought they were good at what they do, although admittedly this isn't really my cup of tea in 2009. But still, I figured I couldn't turn down a free record. He also gave me an LP mailer to carry it in, which came in very useful later...

There were 250 copies of this record made. I think it's the only record I own that I can't pronounce the title.

Anyway, a couple of bands played, but I have no idea who they were. I was too busy talking to people. Then Down To Nothing played. I kinda like some of their earlier records, but wasn't really in the mood to enjoy them. I watched them play, but the average age of the audience made me feel old. Then Bane played. I pretty much watched the whole set from the sidelines. Just wasn't feeling in the mood to jump around. But at the end of the set I was so disgusted that they didn't play "Superhero" that I went up front and requested it. Of course, they're nice chaps, so started to play, and I started to dance...

A few seconds in, I got pushed forward against the stage. At this point I figured that the best course of action was to jump back onto the people behind me. So I put my foot on the edge of the stage and launched myself up and back, expecting to land on top of the crowd. However, by some unfortunate twist of fate, suddenly there was no crowd behind me anymore. I didn't know this at the time of course. I found out as I fell further than expected onto the floor. And, as anyone would do when they realise they are falling, I put my hand down to cushion the impact. And this is where it all went wrong. When my hand hit the ground something inside my arm moved. I actually felt bones kinda shift position. It didn't really hurt, but I knew something was wrong immediately. I got up and glanced briefly at my elbow. I can't describe it other than to say it looked wrong. Trapped at the front of a packed room, I figured the best way to get out of there was to walk over the stage, which is what I did. Then some dude walked me upstairs and called an ambulance.

The paramedics came pretty quick. They gave me oxygen and morphine. A short while later a proper ambulance came and took me to Charing Cross hospital. Clearly I wasn’t an emergency because they didn’t even drive with the siren on, and they kept stopping at traffic lights. I got there about midnight – so about an hour after the incident. Once admitted, I had x-rays and the doctor (who looked exactly like Elizabeth Shue – I even asked her if anyone had ever said she looked like someone famous and she replied “yes, the prostitute from Leaving Las Vegas”) told me I had a dislocated elbow. I could still move my fingers and had feeling in them, and could squeeze her hand, so they were sure it wasn’t broken. So good news in a way. But they said they were going to sedate me and then pop my elbow back into place. And that’s what they did. They gave me ketamine at about 1am and a few seconds later I was out of it. In case you don't know what ketamine is, I grabbed this from the nerd:

Ketamine is a short-acting but powerful general anaesthetic which depresses the nervous system and causes a temporary loss of body sensation. Ketamine can cause perceptual changes or hallucinations like LSD, in addition to its effects on reducing bodily sensation. Users can trip for up to an hour and may feel after-effects for some hours.

Oh well, there goes the edge. After I woke up I felt super drowsy and dizzy. The room was spinning. After a while I managed to focus on the clock and see it was about 2:30. It had felt like about ten seconds. At this point they told me I was fixed but I was kinda out of it so couldn’t tell. I had to go for more x-rays so they could check everything was where it was supposed to be. After this they put a cast on my arm and a sling. By this time it was about 3am. They then told me I could go home, but there was no way that was going to happen because I felt too ill. So I tried to sleep. I kept drifting off but then waking up again feeling sick. At 5am I went outside to get some air and ended up throwing up (although nothing came out because I hadn’t eaten for over 12 hours). At this point they realised I wasn't right, so they let me sleep in a dark room… although they didn’t give me a pillow and the bed was like a rock, so sleep was not easy.

I was then woken at 7am (aka two hours later) by some chick telling me I could go home. Unfortunately though, I didn’t want to because I still felt sick. But they wanted the bed, so they offered me a chair to sit in instead. At about 8:15 some dude came along to tell me that they were going to look at my x-rays and make a decision about whether I needed surgery. Turns out that my arm was fractured and there was a little piece of bone fragment loose and they might need to do surgery and put a pin in my arm! So I waited. Throughout my entire wait I kept going to the toilet to throw up nothingness. Thankfully, about 45 minutes later they told me that they didn’t think surgery was necessary and I could go home once I had been given a better sling. Again, I had to wait for this for the best part of an hour.

Finally, at about 10am, I could go home. But then the next problem was logistics. Before going to the show I had parked my car in Camden. The hospital was in Hammersmith in West London. Probably five miles or so. But with one arm I couldn’t drive anyway. So I called my dad. He ended up catching a train to Camden, and I got a taxi there (throwing up nothing en route) to meet him. He then drove my car to my place, with me sat in the passenger seat giving directions. Finally got home at about 1 o’clock in the afternoon looking something like this:

Later in the day my friend Adam called to check I was ok. He had seen the whole thing. He also told me that Dalbec had given him two of the Bane tour 7"s to give to me. I figured I would get them from him at some point. But then a few weeks later I realised I wasn't going to bump into him anytime soon so asked him to send them through the mail to me, which he did. And even though he lives in London and I asked him to send them to my work address somewhere else in London, they still took almost a month to arrive. Goddamn postal strike backlog!

Anyway, hopefully this explains why this post is nearly four months later than it should have been. Apologies. Hopefully it won't happen again.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

do not stage dive, my friend. here is your lesson.

I'm glad it finally arrived.

Mike said...

Wow. Crazy story. I fucked up my ankle once, landing wrong after stagediving at a D.R.I. show, and getting a real bad sprain. Then had to make the 3 hour drive home by myself. But that pales in comparison to your trip to the hospital.

Graham said...

You didn't mention the flapjacks

Aliaxey Kharytanovich said...

About Honour Among Thieves LP's title. It reads "Konyets" with emphasis on the second syllable. Means "The End" in Russian.
Cheers!