sound of the suburbs

There are some gigs that just don't go right, maybe the the roadie God is in a bad mood, maybe someone's got their guitar strings crossed, whatever when things go wrong it's bad news. On paper everything looks fine and you think you're in for a good night, this was very much the case for Sugar's eagerly anticipated passage at Le Rockstore in June 1993. This was the period that their 'Beaster' album had been released, and having long been a Husker Du fan I had closely followed Bob Mould's solo career and was more than impressed with his new band Sugar. Once again I found myself working the gig but this time as a roadie. We thought we were in for a good evening, advanced sales were good, there was a real buzz surrounding the gig and summer was on it's way, little were we to know. The stage set up was impressive, rarely did one see so much amplification for a meager three piece, it looked as if my dream was to come true and that Sugar would be taking us to places, sonically speaking, that other bands could only dream of. And this was to be the case for less than 40 minutes when the band were louder than Spinal Tap could ever wish to be be while retaining a sense of melody that was straight out of the Beatles school. Then for no real apparent reason Bob Mould stormed off the stage, to be followed by the other two members leading a direct line to their dressing rooms where they promptly slammed the door shut and that was the last we saw of them for two hours! Apparently vibes between the individual members were none to good and Mould being the perfectionist was none to pleased with his fellow band members that night. I latter heard that blows were exchanged in the dressing rooms along with lets just say very strong words. This was not my problem at the time, as downstairs in the hall the crowd were not pleased and did not understand why things had ended so abruptly. The band's road manager wasted little time in communicating to us that the gig was over, and so the house lights went up, and music was relayed over the PA. Then their roadmanager asked us to start unwiring the stage mikes, this was not a good idea? As we started this task the crowd turned ugly and so it was that we worked under a hail of spit, plastic glasses and insults. Our task finished we retired from the stage to find refuge at the bar while we waited for further orders. These were to arrive a little bit latter when we were informed that Sugar had reformed and our services were required to mike up the stage. And so two hours after quitting the stage the band treated those remaining members of the audience to a scorching encore, I guess it was a bit like sex after an argument! In conclusion I could say that what should have been a sweet evening turned out to be a bitter pill to swallow.

Sugar's reputation was built on their excellent records and their live performances, today's music is all live and can be found on their rarities compilation 'Besides' and as you can guess all of the tracks had previously seen the light of day on singles.