The Bull & Gate
When your mates’ band says they’re playing a gig in London on a Sunday night and your Mrs is home from the US for just one week, you just grab the chance with both hands. So me & DJ Chick’n'Rock jumped the train to the capital at 7pm and touched down in Kentish Town just as the snow was starting to settle.
The Bull & Gate, if you’ve not been there, is an excellent little venue about 2 minutes walk from Kentish Town tube station. With a bar at the front of the house and a live stage at the back, it’s a perfect place to rock out on the day of worship.
First up were Swallow Your Pride and what a great noise to kick off the gig with. Although I lost my way with metal for a bit in the ’90s, there was both a Machine Head and Panterra t-shirt on the stage and that’s the sound we were treated to; Heavy & catchy.
Safehouse Theory hit the stage next and certainly made quite an impression. Their sound was very reminiscent of a band who had a similar name before they went big and Becky said they’d certainly go down well in the U.S. – that’s what so many Brit bands want to hear when trying to make it big. (BTW whatever happened to Bush?)
Safehouse Theory were pretty polished. Despite the small stage they certainly had presence and not a shred of ego there; They just got on and enjoyed pumping out hard & heavy rock with some nice catchy melodies and a lot of vocal passion, backed up by beats & fx. Their bassist was particularly excellent and has inspired me to give up playing the 4-string because I haven’t got a hope in hell – I think I’ll just retire into being a rhythm guitarist 
And finally, ladies & gentlemen, Demilo. With a good-looking chick on vocals they’re like a younger Republica. Of course a decent voice and some cute tunes does the trick too, so Demilo are candy to both the eyes and ears.
Whilst lead-singer Tess is explaining the meaning to the next song bassist Chris butts in and pipes “It’s about drugs” LOL And after that all their songs seemed to be about drugs! Only kidding
Nice to see some bodies from Farnborough at the gig and as the clock struck 11 we had to head home that way ourselves… and that’s where the REAL fun began.
Due to the snow above ground the tube train services underground were badly affected. Our tube train was late and when it did turn up it took us to the wrong branch line, so we hopped off at London Bridge at midnight to make another connection.
The Jubilee line was closed completely so we had to walk to Waterloo to catch the 00:58 last train.
After an hour of trudging through snowy London streets, very reminiscent of a Victorian Christmas card we finally made it to our train, which was late in leaving, luckily, because it was now 1:07am.
The 40 minute train journey back to north-east Hampshire took over 2 hours thanks to snow & “points failure” and once back in Farnborough we had to dust off the Subaru and drive home in the snow, finally getting home at 3:30am
What a long old night, but it was fun 
And the best bit? I took a cheap snapshot of some old London Church looking pretty in the snow. When I got home and downloaded the image… it was only the Atheist Bus infront of Southwark Cathedral! How funny is that?
For those of you who don’t know The Tumbledown, it is (was) the best local pub in the area for live music of the alternative/rock/punk kind. OK, there’s The Agincourt in Camberley and the West End Centre in Aldershot (each 5 miles away) but the Tumbledown was ours. The Tumbledown was Farnborough’s own unique pub.
