Super Dupes forced to put indoor debut on hold

Sadly that debut is now going to have to wait with the imposition of the second national lockdown.

Brighton’s music venues had been joining forces to programme a series of live gigs to support and protect the city’s vibrant music scene, under the banner Live Is Alive! over four consecutive Saturday evenings running from October 17 and finishing on November 7, with each event featuring local emerging artists and bands, programmed and presented in collaboration with grassroots music venues.

Among the performers lined up for this Saturday’s final night were Brighton’s Super Dupes, a band which far from suffering during the first lockdown was actually created during the first lockdown, as Jamie Patterson explains.

“We happened by accident really,” Jamie says. “It was just musicians who knew each other, not long after lockdown started. We were frustrated not having anywhere we could play once gathering physically was off the menu and the rehearsal studios closed. It all started out of a couple of busking set-ups, just playing in the park. We were jamming in a park initially, a few of us who had all played in different bands before, and we picked up a sax player who heard us in the park.

“He had been playing down the other end of the park. We had written a song that we were playing early on, and a few days later we heard the melody of the song drifting through. He had filmed it on his phone and he had learnt it.

“It is only fairly recently that we have been able to have indoor rehearsals, and we took on another brass player. Now there are six of us.

“It feels like the right number at which to put a cap on. In fact (with the rule of six), we can’t actually have anyone else on board anyway!

“We had taken it from playing in parks to playing in places that were a bit more public. We found more public places to set up where restaurants and bars would be enthused rather than upset by us.”

Just being adaptable has been crucial, and it will help them go wherever the music now takes them. Now inevitably, lockdown puts absolutely everything on hold, but the band will be hoping their enthusiasm for the project will see them through troubling times which have just got considerably worse. They had even begun getting their set together for the Dome gig this weekend. The idea was that each band would have 20 minutes.

“It is what we love doing, and we feel quite motivated about keeping it going because it happened out of necessity and by accident.”

For Jamie and the band, Brighton Dome would in effect have been their indoor debut: “You have just got to take your opportunities and see what happens. It could all have been easier, but always with music in this country everything could have been easier. But I think we have been very lucky to live in a city that has such good outdoor spaces and that has such a nice music scene. And I think we have been very fortunate to inherit it at a time when there really hasn’t been much happening. People have seemed really happy to have found us, and it feels like we have made the right decisions.”

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