So, after the premiere for the new documentary on The Parkinsons (A Long Road to Nowhere) at The Prince Charles Cinema it was time go to the aftershow at the St Moritz Club on Wardour street where The Parkinsons played their first ever gig 15 years ago to the day at Gaz's Rocking Blues club.
Obviously it was packed with many people who were in the film as well as many long-time fans and friends of the band. By the time they came on it was well past midnight and they started off by getting everyone to sing "Happy Birthday" to Pedro Chau whose 40th birthday it was. What a way to celebrate and just as they were about to launch into the first song proper it seems that Pedro's bass had died. Well actually it was the DI box and Pedro had to battle through the packed venue to get another DI box which gave Afonso and Victor time to give thanks to a few people and tell some really bad jokes and then finally it was time for The Parkinsons to let rip.
They kicked things off with a brash and frenetic New Wave that saw Afonso do his first crowd surf of the night. There was just about enough room between the audiences' heads and the ceiling for him and the power in that small room was incredible as everyone was up for it. They followed that with a nuts version of Body & Soul that just ripped into us.
It was so packed I couldn't see anything happening on stage but you just needed to hear Afonso spitting out the lyrics to Too Many Shut Ups while Victor Torpedo splattered us with his guitar manglings and current drummer Paula Nozzari hammered out the beat for them to dive off of.
Angel In The Dark was one big sing along as Afonso again launched himself into the audience to make sure we all really got it. They then switched drummers bringing Chris Low back to the drum seat so that the classic line-up could play a brilliant version of Bad Girl. It was great to hear Chris back in the drum seat once more. He stayed put for a monster version of Primitive that had most of us smiling and trying to find the room to mosh a bit.
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I think they then switched drummers again and Paula was back in the driving seat for Nothing To Lose that was full on in your face madness and followed by a Back To life which just flew by in a whirl of feedback and dirty bass from Pedro.
Was the next song Nothing Makes Me Happy? Well if it was they are wrong as the one thing that makes everyone at this gig happy is seeing The Parkinsons live going nuts and making the audience go crazy with them. So much so that New Reality went down a storm and had loads of madness going on in it.
Then Afonso thanked us all for showing up and they finished things off with City Of Nothing as Afonso crowd surfed and brought the mayhem to us once more. Inevitably, they didn't go off for an encore as there was no way to get through the crowd and back so they stayed put and really finished the night off with a brilliant version of So Lonely that certainly had everyone singing to it. In fact, many of us carried on singing after the song ended!! It was a great climax to a great night out and a great way for the band to celebrate 15 years together.
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