Hamburg brought us nothing but trouble, (that naughty city), but London brought us home. Finally, after many long years we were going to have our first headlining show in London. Our second chance had come. Our second chance to erase that stopped momentum we lost way long ago when Chick fell ill. As I stepped onto the stage at the Islington Bar Academy, I smiled at the realization that we had made it to that moment in time. We were about to head forward into the unknown—but I wasn't scared I was thrilled. We had changed the past and had done what we thought we would never do again. That felt so empowering. It felt so important.
A couple people held up a sign that read, "Welcome Back Scarce". The small room was filled with people. The air was filled with something too—something that I hadn't felt before. Everyone wanted us to make it to this moment too. They wanted it as much as we did. London wanted us to go on as a band. As we played the Deadsexy record for the first time in years on these shores, those songs were being loved in a way they had never gotten the chance to. The songs were getting a second life after years of sitting on a shelf collecting dust. A band and a record lost and then found again, by a small group of people in London. A small group of people who did believe in a band called Scarce.
When Chick started singing the lines, "I wouldn't miss a minute of this," in the song Freakshadow, the audience began singing along. That line—that line meant so much right now. That line summed up this moment in time. That line even choked up Chick. I could see it, as he paused in front of the microphone and allowed the audience to continue singing for him for a brief second. For the rest of the set, song after song, the audience continued to sing with Chick and I. The Deadsexy record had well, been brought back from the dead so to speak. Song after song, Scarce was whole again— all thanks to a group of people in London.
In classic Scarce style, the club cut our set short and told us we had to get off the stage so they could make way for the next show. The stage manager didn't even give us a second to step down from the stage before screaming at us. A crash back down to reality, ahhh classic Scarce. But then something happened that I didn't expect, I was surrounded by a group of people asking me to sign tickets —tickets that had been printed up for our headlining tour that we never made it to. I was overwhelmed as more and more people asked me the same thing. They had all held onto those tickets. All these years.
I signed away tickets, copies of my book, record sleeves—all while being slowly pushed out the doors by the bouncers of the club. We wanted to stay and hang out and just talk to all these people who had shown us so much love but The Islington Bar Academy did not understand, they had a club to run. Business as usual. We wanted to hang out with all the audience all night into the wee hours of the morning drinking and celebrating this amazing power they had given us as an audience.
We wanted to thank the London audience somehow, so I am hoping this installment will instill to you UK readers how much you gave us at the Islington Bar Academy. We cannot thank you enough London. So I end this installment more as a thank you note than a story, because I feel like Scarce can never express how thankful we were for that night. It made us a whole again.
THANKS TO LONDON FOR FINDING US AGAIN. WE WILL BE BACK IN THE FALL AT A BETTER CLUB NEXT TIME SO CAN ALL SHARE A DRINK!
CHEERS,
Joyce, Chick, and Joe
No comments:
Post a Comment