My first visit to Night and Day Café was unusually to see a support band on 02/11/06. The band in question was the terrifically named post-rock outfit Amusement Parks on Fire from Nottingham. I had picked up on them via their second album Out of the Angeles with its distinctive sci-fi sleeve cover. They were a decent noisy live act with the venue only about a third full.
For the main act Mumm Ra I recall there was a hugely overactive guitar tech thoroughly prepping the kit, unfortunately despite the odd moment the headliners were a tad limp and a bit twee for my tastes.
In May 2012 we headed in after another gig at the Soup Kitchen and caught a portion of Rooftop Runners set who were a Berlin based electronic combo comprising two Canadian brothers. We caught a further gig at Gulliver’s that night to complete a commendable trifecta. The following year we saw local act Egyptian Hip Hop who supported The Words.
I also saw John Steele Singers, a non-descript six-piece from Brisbane in Australia and witnessed a decent fuzzy surf pop set called Get Inuit from Kent in 2015 as part of the Carefully Planned Festival.
On a cold January night in January 2008 we decided ambitiously to do a double header of gigs which was deemed feasible by the virtue of Night and Day having later set times. So, after witnessing most of the Explosions in the Sky set at the Academy and additionally finding out North End had got an important victory over West Bromwich Albion, we jumped in a cab in true movie style and landed right on cue to see the much touted Glasvegas wander on stage.
The Glaswegians had a real presence about them, and this is surprisingly for me to say but on this occasion, they overcompensated with volume which resulted in them losing a degree of the subtlety of their self-titled debut album material. The song highlights on the night were ‘Geraldine’ and Stabbed’, the latter being a particularly dark heartfelt track.
After the gig we ensconced to the bar and upon suddenly realising the late train was due we smuggled the remaining half bottles of Budvar out of the venue to accompany the walk back. Upon turning the corner to trot up the hill to Piccadilly station there was a young copper who on espying us had a big grin on his face due to the combined age of about 140 between the three of us. His opening riposte was ‘I am not going to have any trouble with you lads am I?’ to which he got three nods of assent and astutely asked us to lose the bottles at the bin 100 yards beyond him before we entered the station, a fine example of community policing if ever I saw one, so well done to him!
On other visits I saw Low Island, an interesting Wrexham band called Gallops and an experimental project called Self Esteem consisting solely of Rebecca Lucy Taylor who was previously a member of Slow Club. I additionally saw Brad Stark and Seazoo, a quirky Welsh indie band. I witnessed a fine set from an Australian/Danish duo called Palace Winter who as a result of their quality I then made a conscious effort to see them in their own right a couple of years later.
It is now exactly a year to the day (13/03/20) since I saw my last gig of Nada Surf at Hop and Grape, which is naturally my longest ever gap between gigs. But there are now chinks of light on the horizon and I am hopeful of having my first vaccine soon. I have now started booking some gigs for later in the year which is very exciting!
