With their newest single, 'Astoria', due for release this Friday (19 Aug), and fresh off an appearance at Splendour In The Grass, Byron Bay natives PLTS (pronounced Pilots) share some of their not-so-crazy-hot shows they've experienced.
1. The 'drunken hippie spear tackle' show
[Eli Ayo, bass] Kit, our singer, was playing a solo gig at a venue in Byron Bay when, out of nowhere, he was spear-tackled from behind by a drunken, dreadlocked hippie. Kit landed face first and snapped the neck on his $2,000 guitar. As furious as he was at the time, looking back on that moment really brings me joy.2. The 'drunk man tried to punch a woman' show
Another drunken scenario, this time during our set at a pub on the mid-north coast of NSW. Everything started out civilised; we had a few people from the crowd dancing along to our music.Out of nowhere, a drunk bogan comes into the middle of the dancefloor, swings a punch at a woman, misses, then gets tackled by security. We never got to the end of that story, but needless to say it really dampened the rest of our set and we were a bit on edge.
3. The 'Adelaide rookies' show
That time we drove for days to the deep south, with high hopes of having a successful show. It was the first show of our headline tour, and we rocked up to the beautiful city of Adelaide. We hadn't advertised or promoted the event; I don't even think we knew where we were playing.Long story short, we had TWO payers and our drummer Harry pulled a muscle in his back. Hopefully our next show there will be a little better (we’re playing there in November).
4. The 'fill-in drummer' show
We were asked to play a gig on the Gold Coast. All the band members were free to play it, until our drummer Harry had to pull out last minute. Kit came to the rescue and convinced us he had a mate that could fill in. Without time to jam with him, we went ahead with the show. He was a good drummer, but didn't know any of our songs.I remember Boz, our guitarist, looking at him the whole set, conducting the drummer with facial expressions and head movements as to what part of the song was coming next so that the fill-in could follow along. Post-show, people didn't seem to notice, so that was good. I think one rehearsal together would have improved things a lot.
5. The 'being asked to do some Aussie rock covers during our set' show
Yamba is a nice place to visit, and some of the pubs can get pretty rowdy and fun. But we did have a shocker there quite a while back. Whether it was the crowd continuously stealing the microphone from Kit, or the few bogans yelling at us to do some AC/DC covers, something about it didn't seem quite right. But we made it out alive.PLTS play Solbar (Sunshine Coast) this Saturday 20 August.
