So yesterday I went to the Black Cherry Lounge (formerly ‘The Rig’) at Rock City in Nottingham. Why was I there? Well, several weeks beforehand LeftLion magazine announced via The Nusic podcast that they were going to be doing something special there. For the December issue of their magazine they wanted to take a photo of the entire Nottingham music scene (or thereabouts, anyway) to use as the cover picture. To do this they had hired out Rock City for an evening. Considering LeftLion are a not-for-profit community organization I found this pretty incredible.

The idea was fun, brought creatively minded people together and also helped to create press/social media buzz about Nottingham (yet some people still weren’t pleased – more on that later!) So there I was, stood in the Black Cherry Lounge with a group number, waiting for it to be called so I could take my place within the photoshoot going on in the main stage area of Rock City. I swear everywhere I looked all evening there were familiar faces.  Gerry Trimble, Long Dead Signal, Gallery 47, Delta Sun, The Golden Troubadours/Oldboy, the Nusic team, Nina Smith, Motormouf, Royal Gala members, Breadchasers, Baby Godzilla, Poddingham Paul, Liam Bailey, Mr Roo Inns, Roger, Bainy & Andy from Notts live – yeah, I could be here all night – you get the picture!

Once the photoshoot kicked off we all stood there for half an hour or so whilst everybody tried to organise themselves amongst the chaos. There were so many people there it was hard to get everyone in the picture, so ‘take a step back’ got called out a fair bit! There were some issues with taller people blocking others, but seeing as the photo was taken from above at an angle I think it should turn out OK.

Whilst this was going off there were two hipster/indie kid types behind me, presumably from some band too awesome for a mere mortal such as myself to have heard of. I wish I knew who these guys were so I could name & shame them (although I’m too nice to do that anyway) as these guys were some of the BIGGEST PRICKS I have ever come across in my life. They spent the entire shoot whining about ‘how shit‘ it was, saying over and over ‘this is a TERRIBLE idea’ etc in mocking, whiny voices. I was so tempted to say to them ‘well if it’s so shit, why the fuck are you here??‘ Granted, the organisation of the whole event wasn’t perfect – but why would it be? They should appreciate that lots of people had worked fucking hard, in their SPARE TIME to make it happen. I’d like to see them do better anyway – although considering at one point they said ‘we’re the only ones here who are going to make it anyway‘ (yes, they really did say that) they probably thought they were masters of the fucking universe or something.

Anyway, despite that dampener on the evening there was only one other disappointment for me. After the shoot there was an after party in the Black Cherry Lounge – only about 50 odd people stuck around for it, out of 400 odd people. Way to miss an excellent networking opportunity, Nottingham! Seriously, this is one thing that disappoints me about the Notts music scene – you get an amazing opportunity like that, and people don’t make the most of it. Still, those of us that stuck around had a laugh and a banter and all was good. Motormouf and an eclectic array of other musicians all entertained us with a freestyle jam on the mini stage there too, which was cool.

So yeah, all in all a fantastic evening, only marred slightly by some people’s attitudes. I would like to say a HUUUUUUGE thanks to LeftLion (and Nusic too, and Parisa from Basement Forte) for organizing the whole thing – I am very grateful for such an awesome opportunity. I await the December magazine in anticipation!