Time flies

I can't believe its been over a year since I've been in here, especially considering how well we've been received lately. The start of the year produced 5 excellent gigs which seemed to raise our level and we've been riding that wave for a while now, and fingers crossed no slip ups.
Most recently our gig at the Stanford Welcome club and charity event at the Fatling & Firkin in Hornchurch have received rousing applaud but both gigs wouldn't allow for us to continue longer due to time constraints and having no energy left!
We're about to do 3 very local gigs at the Sun, Romford on 24th April; Crown, Hornchurch on 30th April; and Fatling & Firkin, Hornchurch on 1st May. We've also recently had confirmation of helping to raise funds for charity at the White Horse Beer Festival, Coxtie Green on Sunday 11th July, 8-9pm with a host of other bands over the 9-11th.

Sat Night at The Firkin in Hornchurch

Thought I would be the first to write in the blog this year. What a night Saturday was! We were expecting a half empty pub with everyone being too skint to come out and see us, what with the credit crunch and paying for Xmas etc. How wrong we were! The Firkin was rammed, probably the fullest I have seen it in a very long time and everyone was going for it in a big way. It was taking 15 minutes to get served at the bar but that didn't put anyone off. We played two Rocking Sets that had the whole pub jumping up and down. So if you were there shouting and singing and dancing thanks for helping to make it a rocktastic night. Cheers x

What a weekend!

Our weekend was a fitting end to the year for Undercover gigs. On Friday morning we were asked by Pete from Napkin A*se & Squabbler to help them out as they were a singer down and had to cancel their gig at The Fatling & Firkin. We were also a man down with our bass player and PA man so step forward Pete to help us out with both. Using the Squabbler PA we carried off an excellent gig in front of lots of muso's, including the rest of Squabbler and Tony from Napkin A*se, and received plenty of praise from Matt who organises the gigs at the Firkin - "the best band on a Friday night for months!"
Saturday brought our last public gig at The Bull, Colchester and what a stonker of a gig it was. A packed venue which once again was full to capacity and everyone seemed up for it. We were going down extremely well which explains why we carried on past 12 for another 25 minutes of covers. It has to go down as one of our best gigs ever - even the bouncers were dancing! Really looking forward to visiting in 2009.
At the end of the night we met the band that were playing in the music room, SurfQuake who cover lots of surf songs, write some of their own and include Nelson, the bass player from New Model Army. Hopefully we'll catch these guys gigging one day and surf the night away.
The weekend was followed with our last gig of the year, at Parklands, Quendon entertaining for a wedding on Monday. Lots of Christmas feel to this and the lighting was almost solely supplied with candles. Our best wishes go to the bride and groom for a long and successful life.

Undercover get a Christmas make-over

Well, we're firmly into December and the website has taken on a Christmas theme with our snow background and Christmas fun video. We've also created a Flash player so that you can listen to the tracks we recorded in July direct from the site. Of course those who don't have Flash enabled can download the tracks and play them in their music players eg. QuickTime, Windows Media Player or direct from the likes of iTunes. Both the video and tracks can be found on our Undercover website and Undercover
MySpace site.

Why not view the Christmas video and listen to our tracks and give us some feedback via our Undercover email.

Our last public gig for 2008 is at The Bull Hotel, Crouch Street, Colchester which promises to be a very lively night. Hopefully we'll see some familiar faces but please arrive early as quite often the venue fills to capacity (on one occasion even we couldn't get back in LOL).

Undercover would like to thank everyone for supporting us during 2008 and wish all our "undies" and "undercrackers", promoters, publicans, organisers and helpers a Wonderful Christmas Time and best wishes for 2009. Perhaps we'll see a few of you in the new year at The Shark, Harlow on 17th January.

Website Move

We've moved our site from its old host to a new host and amending a few things whilst we do so. We've provided links of 3 mp3s that we recorded in late July and hopefully we'll soon be improving on our photo library.
We've decided to reduce the amount of gigs for 2009 and have already taken bookings for the Fatling & Firkin, Hornchurch; The Crown, Hornchurch, Stanford Welcome Club, The Bull, Colchester and the Shark, Harlow.
We should also have some new badges created before the end of the year so watch out folks.

2008, its going to be busy!

It's a while since I've added to the blog so here's an update of what's happening.
We've got nearly 40 bookings for the year, some in our regular venues and some in some new pubs and areas.
We've recently taken a few bookings at the Bull in Colchester after a superb gig there in January. The punters seemed to really enjoy this gig so hopefully we'll see them again when we return in June. It was our first time using the in-ear monitors and the difference was quite apparent. Took a little while to settle into these in rehearsals but we now find them a great addition to the band. We've also taken on a gig at the King's Arms in Colchester which gives us the chance to entertain on a Sunday afternoon, should be interesting, plus we've been asked if we can play the Town Hall for a special event planned in the summer.
Another new venue for us is the Bridge House in Canning Town which once again opens its doors to live music. The Bridge House was famous for putting on the likes of Iron Maiden, Depeche Mode, Secret Affair, Damned, Sham 69, Stray Cats and individuals such as Mick Jagger, Billy Bragg, Alex Harvey and Jeff Beck. You can catch up on the new site here: http://www.bh2live.com/ and for those that remember the venue there's also a link to the old site to reminisce.
We're now confirmed to play at the Bell Bash once more by supplying our stage, lights and ourselves over the August Bank Holiday to raise monies for local charity MEDICs.
Another couple of great additions comes in the form of the Welcome Club in Stanford-le-Hope where last year we played for the Scooter Club and the Mill House in Dagenham, both CIU affiliates. We can arrange for guests to attend either of these venues by prior arrangement.
We've also been asked to entertain for the fourth year at the biggest beer festival we attend, the Thurrock Beer Festival at Grays in June. This is a wonderful event with a huge amount of beer, plenty of room and only a small charge to attend. The staff are particularly friendly and we always give them the opportunity to have a congo behind the bar!
We hope to see some of you, or even all of you, at one of the various gigs we have booked for 2008.

Keep your partners warm and your beer cold.

Bell Bash 2007

What an excellent weekend! The Bell Bash arrived on a brilliant Sunny weekend and became the busiest ever festival at the Bell Inn with entertainment on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Plenty of "Undies" came up to see us on Saturday and many of the local following came to cheer us on too. Undercover went down an absolute storm and the front of the stage looked like a mosh pit at times. With a charge on entry this year the donations to local charity, MEDICS is in excess of £2,700.
There was a big increase in those camping too which only encouraged us to stay up later than we should, it all added to the fun but we felt a bit rough for our day time gig in Sawbridgeworth on Sunday.
A big thanks to everyone who supported us and thanks to the Undies for travelling up and camping the night away.

There's a number of pix on the website and I'll be adding more over the weekend but here's some specifically for the blog.


Two pix before the event, glorious sunshine but not a pint passed my lips yet!




The Undies show their appreciation



Jill shows she means business



The Undies are off



BBQ time for the hungry ones



Nigel brings out his litre bottle which sank before the sun rose

Mick is on the mend

Last weekend we had to cancel our performance at the White Horse Beer & Music Festival, Coxtie Green due to Drummer Mick's knee problems and a lack of singing voice from Pete. Mick has a recurring injury to his leg where his knee pops out causing quite a bit of pain. He was recently admitted to hospital and was operated on earlier this week. We're glad to say he's now on the mend and we hope to see him behind the drums for the Crown, Hornchurch gig on 27th July, however we have our old drummer Dennis on the sidelines just in case.

On Sat 14th July we entertained for Daren's 40th Birthday with Gavin on the drums. Gavin has previously depped for exposé and had his own band, Cactus Jack. The gig went well considering we hadn't rehearsed with Gav for over 5 years! There's a few pix on our website for you to have a look at Band Photos

This week we have the drummer from The Doctors entertaining the guests for a wedding near Saffron Walden. The Doctors are supporting us at the Bell Bash so we're looking forward to meeting at least one of them although Mick's had enough of doctors for the moment :-)

Sat 23rd Pelican 10th Birthday Party

Saturday evening we were invited to entertain the parents to celebrate the 10th Birthday of the Pelican Prep School in Cambridge. With everyone dressed to impress in dinner suits and ball gowns the evening started with a champagne reception and dinner in a superb marquee. Undercover took to the stage at 9.45 as the guests were "itching to get on the dance floor". 2 sets of over an hour each were not enough and as our rendition of Teenage Kicks went down so well we gave Blur and the Clash an airing. They demanded more so we heated the evening up with Pretty Vacant and finally finished at nearly 12.30 with Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit.
We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, so a big thanks goes out to the parents some of whom couldn't miss a photo opportunity. Congratulations on your 10 years and long may it continue.

Festival Fun

I had a great time at the Thurrock Beer Festival. One of the few times this year that I can put the UHF link on my guitar and run around almost as much as Pete! Great gig and a great crowd.

Straight after the gig I drove up to Nottingham getting to Jill's house (my g/f) at 2.30am and the next day we hit the DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL.

What a day! Bowling for Soup were the most entertaining band of the day but others we saw were Marilyn Manson, Slayer and the mighty Motley Crue.

Still getting over the hangover!

Lets see some of your festival pics on here