I was walking home from work one day and a poster, amongst many others promoting various things got my attention. "MAKE NOISE AGAINST WHALING" the poster was practically screaming at me to read it! On closer inspection it turned out to be a poster advertising a gig at Chinnerys in aid of charity. Tickets were £5 in advance from the Sealife Centre or £7 on the door and there would be four bands playing. All the money was going to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. Of course this was a date that would have to go in the diary!

It didn't seem long before the 28th June rolled round. Luckily for me I was actually on holiday from work that particular week so the fact it was on a Thursday night wasn't a problem for once!

There wasn't that many people there yet when we arrived about 7.30pm so we had a drink outside and waited for the doors to be opened. Once inside it seemed to get busy quite quickly so I think they must have raised a good amount of money for the charity. Inside they had put up a screen with images of whales on the wall and there was a display board just by the side of the stage with information about whaling and lots of leaflets. They were also selling some very nice badges at the bar with "Stop the Bloody Whaling" on for £1.50 each, so of course we got some! There were about four different petitions to sign so I made sure I signed those too..

The first band to come on was Red Track, except it was only one member of Red Track, Billy. I had seen the complete band once before when they did a gig in the highstreet recently but I thought Billy managed to pull off a really good set on his own as well. He put in a very energetic performance too. Red Track's songs are very funny and a lot of them are about Southend so they went down really well. The last song was about Talk nightclub! I think the only thing that let him down was his bad joke, "Hope you're all having a whale of a time..." But overall, it was a fantastic set.

After Billy from Red Track, a girl from the Sealife Centre came on the stage and told us when whaling season started and explains that the event is being filmed and photgraphed to be shown all across the world. So it really was time to make noise against whaling! She got the crowd going to clap and stamp their feet, and then introduced us to the International Director of Science for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, Mark Simmonds.

Mark Simmonds gave a very interesting talk about whales, including how many different species of whales there are (between 79 and 82 with more still being discovered) and about whale meat in Japan and Norway. He also explains that whaling is really just about the money it makes.

After the talk, the next band up was Cocoma. They were heavier than Red Track and very loud! They were also offering free cds to people who asked for them, so a friend of ours managed to get one for us. They didn't really talk much between songs like Billy did, so I wasn't able to know any of the songs titles. They were quite good, but it was a shame they didn't interact with the crowd very much.

When they finished, Mark Simmonds came back and told us about what happened to Whales last year, as it was a pretty bad year for whales.

Unfortanely after this we decided to leave, as by this point it was very crowded and was too hot, a few of my friends were tired as well.

Even though we left early I'd had a good night, and was pleased to see so many people turn up for such a worthy cause. I give high regards to whoever it was at the Sealife Centre who set this event up. It would be good to see more of this type of event in Southend!

If you want to check out the bands the pages are

www.myspace.com/redtracktheband
www.myspace.com/cocomamusic