July 19th - Upstairs At The Garage, London

The night before the Phoenix Festival gig, Mice played upstairs at The Garage, London. Its a small venue but was well attended with a few familiar faces. The support act wasn't bad but not good enough to remember his name.

Julianne marched on stage with the rest of the band ... a new line-up that was only ever meant to be a temporary one for the Phoenix gig. Julianne on guitar and vocals (of course) with Andy Cousin on Bass and his girlfriend on keyboards. Andy was looking well and received a huge cheer. He and his girlfriend are apparently forming their own band.

Dom was on drums as usual and a member of the recently split Mission was standing in on the lead guitar. Within minutes of playing one of Julianne's string broke and she had to be handed a replacement whilst it was sorted. They then went on to play a blistering set including the new track Pyjamadrama from the new single Dear Sir. This went down really well as it came across great live. Julianne made some comment along the lines of " ...I didn't realise you were so saucy !" Unfortunately Tiny Window wasn't featured.

Another surprise was a couple of Eve tracks that were thrown in. Most of the audience roared in appreciation that Julianne had relented to play them although a couple mentioned afterwards that she shouldn't have done it. Julianne had stated when the first gigs were advertised in March '96 "to come with open minds" as non of the Eve's stuff would be featured. Why she changed her mind we're yet to find out. The two tracks she played were Freeze and Every Angel. These slotted really well into the Mice set.

July 20th - Phoenix Festival, Mean Fidler Stage

Phoenix festival was the largest audience Mice have played to date. They were reasonably high on the set list for a new band that had received little coverage by the music press and were due on at 6.00 on the Mean Fiddler Stage.

As the afternoon progressed things weren't looking too good. One of the bands, 'Nut' that were on several slots prior to Mice had trouble with their sound. Nut are a great band that have previously supported Mice (April 5th - Wolverhampton: Connaught Hotel) and deserved better. A couple of tracks into their set the electric generator for the tent cut out and the band were forced to wait while the problem was sorted out. To add insult to injury it then happened again and understandably the band didn't bother coming back on.

By the time Mice were due on the problems seemed to be sorted but more and more people were making their way to the main stages. Julianne came on stage looking very nervous with the same line up as the previous night. They also played the same set which went down really well and by the time they had finished the tent was pretty much full again.