A Stupid Gig – Featuring Claudia and The Braidy Bunch, Ian Jeffs, Enemies of Promise

What: A Stupid Gig
Where: The Cornerhouse, Newmarket Road, Cambridge
When: 23rd March 2016
Money Raised: £192

I can’t really say I had all that much to do with organising this one. I did have great fun attending it though. The legendary Paul Richards did most the organising – arranging the venue, getting us a sound guy for free and whatnot. Claudia and The Braidy Bunch, Ian Jeffs, Enemies of Promise and the vastly underrated Stephen Matthew all turned up to play, they more or less organised themselves in what order to play and when. One of the kickboxers took money from people on the door, all I had to do was hang around and be sociable.

Stephen Matthew was first up, somehow managing to convince a still sober audience to stand up and dance to the milkshake song (Travolta – to the left! Travolta – to the right! Twist, two, three, four. Spin, two, three, four, do the milk shake baby!). I’m not entirely sure how he managed this, or how I ended up caught on camera, but it was great fun. He even performed a song specifically written for the night, called All The Stupid Way Goats, which was fantastic.

Enemies of Promise came up next; they were our loud act for the night. They had kindly travelled all the way from Wolverhampton, and consisted of two guys and a drum machine. A few of their friends had turned up, which was great as we needed the audience members. They played punky stuff, were a good laugh and had a song about a villain called Nigel, what’s not to like?

Ian Jeffs was up next, he’s probably one of my favourite acts to watch live in Cambridge, so I was well chuffed that he could make it. He and his gravelly voice should be playing much bigger venues than the Cornerhouse. He was infectiously enthusiastic as always, encouraged people to dig into their pockets to support StupidWay and donated some CDs and Vinyl for us to sell at StupidWay events.

Finally up came Claudia and the Braidy Bunch. If there is a more upbeat and positive person in Cambridge than Claudia McKenzie then I’d like to meet that person. Her and the Braidy Bunch looked to be having great fun on stage. We were having great fun in the audience. They do a lot of charity gigs, and their 10-gigs in one day fundraiser last year was what prompted me to start this whole crazy attempt to raise £10,000, so it felt fitting that they were the closing act of our first charity gig.

I stressed quite a bit about this gig, worrying about whether anyone would turn up, whether everyone would have long enough to play, generally imagining that it would fall apart in front of me. Somehow though, everything turned out to be all right on the night. I guess things usually are. I’m really thankful for the bands for coming and playing the gig, without them I’d have been trying to sell tickets for people to watch an empty stage. Also big thanks to the Cornerhouse for letting us set up shop there for the night and to everyone who helped out or came along. It was a great night and we raised another £192 for charity.