There’s a buzz about The Beekeepers again
... but this really will be the last time, singer Jamie East tells COLSTON CRAWFORD as the Derby band who went so close to the big time line up a reunion at the Hairy Dog
“WE were so close you could taste it,” muses Jamie East of the time in the late nineties when Derby band The Beekeepers almost made it big.
A deal with the renowned Beggars Banquet label, an album, a Melody Maker single of the week, TV appearances – the band were indeed close before they fell out and disbanded after a whirlwind 18 months or so in the limelight.
Time is a healer and there have been reunions since at the Old Bell and the Assembly Rooms.
“I think we were the last band to play there before the infamous fire,” says Jamie, the band’s lead singer. “I like to think was because we were so hot!”
Now, anyway, comes what the band insist will be one last reunion, at the Hairy Dog, next Friday, October 22. It’s hurtling towards a sell-out, with people hungry for live music after lockdown.
In fact, the gig has come about as one of the positives from lockdown. Like so many others, the band members found time on their hands and, after a few chats, some songs were aired online, played remotely by the individuals, getting a big and favourable response.
It wasn’t a way of putting yourselves out there which existed when The Beekeepers were nearly making it back in the day, otherwise… well, who knows?
Jamie says they have been surprised and delighted by the response and explains how the gig has come about.
“The reason we said it would be the last gig was that I genuinely thought no-one would be interested and I thought we wouldn’t be able to do it any more,” he says.
“If you’re playing acoustic folk you can do that until you drop dead but doing punk pop/rock at 47 is not the same as it was when you were 22. I’m grateful that the knees haven’t given out yet.
“I think Covid and lockdown has made people reflect on what’s important to them and given everyone time and space to take a look back at what they’ve done and what they’d like to do going forward.
“Technology was in a good place as well. There were bands all over the shop doing zoom gigs and we were all at home driving our families mad. It was a fun thing to do and the response we got from it was amazing. It kind of made us miss it.
“Was the Assembly Rooms really going to be the last time we went on stage together? If it was, that felt quite sad. So we looked through the calendar – and about three days after the gig date will be the 25th anniversary of our first single coming out, which is just insane. The stars collided and it just felt right.
“We announced it and it just went crazy. We’ve had more of a response to this gig than any before, even when we were in the charts.”
That, you see, is more evidence that social media as we know it today was not really up and running when the Beekeepers were making waves the first time.
It was a shame, too, about the way it ended that first time but it was not untypical.
“Derby has always battled against the odds with its music scene,” says Jamie.
“There were glimmers of hope, flashes of brilliance. We were one of the smaller glimmers of hope. Joti came along and put us on the map for a while.
“But from 95 to 98 in Derby was a great time to be in a band. It was incestuous and competitive. We would stand in our corner of the Blue Note glowering at whoever else had a better gig than us that week but, deep down, everyone was really proud to support the scene.
“And then, for us, it did end really quickly but being in a band is difficult.
“The hardest time is when you’re so close you can taste it – and we were. We’d been on the chart show, we’d been top five in the Indie charts, the tours were sell-outs. We’d been recording with the Pixies’ producer and with Marco Pironi from Adam and the Ants.
“It was genuinely just around the corner – and we imploded. I would imagine it’s one of all the members’ biggest regrets, that we didn’t smash our heads together and sort our crap out.
“It was bitter, everything you read about, and we didn’t speak for 10 years.
“We’re the best of friends now. We’ve been together longer than our marriages, I’ve known them longer than anyone other than my immediate family.
“No-one can ever take that away and I’m so glad we can do this now.”
If any tickets for the gig are left, find them here: www.gigantic. com/the-beekeepers-tickets/thehairy-dog/2021-10-22 -19-30
It was genuinely just around the corner – and we imploded. It was bitter and we didn’t speak for 10 years. Jamie East