Gavin Miller / Ghosting Season

Name: Gavin Miller

Band: Ghosting Season (facebook.com/ghostingseason)

Where: Rostock, Germany.

When it comes to gigs, we've had our fair share of dodged bullets over the years: the time we nearly played for a Ska Punk-loving Nazi sympathizer, or the time we narrowly avoided playing Swindon on Boxing Day, or perhaps that time we walked out of an empty show in Sheffield after the promoter pushed back our set from 10pm to nearly 3am.

However, we've also done more than our fair share of utterly horrendous gigs: the one for the promoter who got sectioned, the one in front of one person (the support band's Mum, incidentally) in Milton Keynes, or the one in Oxford on May Day, in which no-one turned up and we didn't get paid or even a goodbye from the promoter.

Anyway, the one that sticks out the most is Rostock. Ah, beautiful Rostock. If you've never been, it's a pretty run down place in the former East Germany. Popular with Death Metal bands and pretty much nothing else. It sticks in the mind more than others simply because it's the only gig we've ever done where we've found bullet casings in the car park.

I was in the band worriedaboutsatan in 2010 and we were on tour around the UK & Europe with our dear friends Her Name Is Calla. We were about a week and a half in, so there were plenty of weird smells and sights in the van by this point, but we're all good friends (Sophie from HNIC is in fact my girlfriend, so more than just friends in some cases) so everything was going pretty well.

Until Rostock. 

We pulled up after a 3 hour drive north from Berlin to be confronted with an average looking small bar venue, and a gigantic old-missile-hanger-looking-thing next door.

Of course, we'd be playing the hanger and not the bar. There was a Metal band on in the bar, and apparently Rostock is very popular with Metal. That's cool, but not so cool when you're an Ambient Electronica band who specialize in reverb laden Techno.

Funnily enough, I think the audience (AKA. the 5 or so people that turned up) actually kind of got it, but it was everything else that made it such a memorable show: the bullets in the car park, the cars with no licence plates in the car park, the dodgy Death Metal flyers everywhere, the fact the venue had no roof but instead a tarpaulin draped over from wall to wall meaning I had to play in my coat and scarf, the rats running around onstage, the fucking dog ate our paltry rider, and the fact that we had to sleep in the bar bit of the venue after the Metal band had cleared out around 3am with a front door that wouldn't lock. 

We got paid though, so I guess it could've been a lot worse. I'm not sure how, but I'm sure it could've been. 

In the morning, we woke up to find Rostock grey, grim and freezing cold. I think the lot of us wanted to get out of that place as quickly as possible, but having not showered for a few days we all decided to take turns in the venue's absolutely knackered (I'm talking Cold War-era) shower facilities that just happened to back onto a practice space of some German Punk bands.

We all had the fastest showers ever, and I'm last in. My desire for a shower was quickly over-ridden by my desire to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible, so I had the sharpest wash known to man. 

Just as I started drying off, the practicing Punk band next door chose that exact moment to burst in on me, stark bollock naked, drying off in a days-old towel. 

Needless to say we pretty much ran to the van to get out of there.

The rest of the tour was littered with stories a bit like that one, but maybe not as severe. We all came away with some absolutely classic anecdotes and all had an amazing time.

In retrospect, it was fucking brilliant.