Darwin Deez

intact pier in brighton

destroyed pier in brighton

cole backstage at digital

In Brighton, two giant piers stretch out into the English channel, one crammed with an elaborate amusement park rollercoaster pleasure land, and the other a skeleton frame, a ruin, destroyed by a fire. Our venue, Digital, was on the edge of the beach, smack in the middle of these two mirroring monuments. One could look left to right, from structure to destruction.

Darwin shared the stage during the finale of the Naive New Beaters set last night. Everyone got really excited when he rushed out sporting the band’s trademark sparkler-attached-to-clothing aflame. It reminded me of when I saw the Mighty Mighty Bosstones in 1997, and Dicky Barrett guested onstage with the Pietasters, the opening band. It’s weird watching a friend of mine command a similar sort of excitement at similar sized show. It’s the kind of stuff you thought was never going to happen.

The wind whipped into a violent howling frenzy as we carted boxes of t-shirts up the seaside ramp and into our van.  There were no seats in the chip shop, so my friend Ophelie and I gobbled up midnight fish and chips with mayonnaise on a tiny stoop, while mother nature did her best to lift us up by our jackets and carry us into the sky. There was something so cutely comical about Ophelie’s incredulousness towards the mere mention of my vegetarian diet, so I indulged her and took a few rare bites of fried fish.

our stage manager, seb

ophelie