Band's debut triumph despite recurring feesh motif

Yup, they're back: it's The Return of the Feesh. Here you see most of the members of the newly-formed Les Malfonctionnaires valiantly avoiding death by guppies.

I would imagine that the normal purpose of the feesh is to entertain the customers of Café de la Gare, Quillan, by looking cute and slightly stupid.

Their secondary mission, which they chose to accept, is to occupy 85% of the band's playing space, the other 15% being taken up by four giant fridges, the dismembered debris of an internet café and the entrance to the toilets.

Thanks to photo correspondent Martin Castellan of Sud Media Images, you can see singer Kate seemingly hypnotised by malignant neon tetra, bassist Stan and drummer Mark suavely unaffected by marine interference and singer Deb blatantly defying the Lure of the Feeshness. Unconspicuous by his absence is the guitarist. C'est à dire, moi.

This is partly because I always look crap on photos and partly because I spent the whole of New Year's Eve standing in the access to the lavatories.

It's a previously little-known fact that playing rock'n'roll causes the entire audience to be dying for a pee; especially during guitar breaks and other twiddly bits where you don't want some hopeless incontinent barging into you every ten seconds.

Thus it was that I saw in 2011 as Rhythm Toilet Attendant. But I won't let this worry me. We had a great night belting out The Beatles, The Stones, Eddie Cochran, Etta James and many more. And so did those who were listening and bopping to us, even if I do say it myself.

Our old mate Rod joined us on guitar, Kate and Mark's son Ezra made his public debut on drums and girlfriend Claire added une jolie touche française with her version of Claude Nougaro's Jazz et le Java.

The band played, the wine flowed and the nosh was noshed, even if ours was stone cold at 1am . . . As it happens, I' ve never previously had someone try to serve me dinner while I've got a guitar in one hand and, erm, a bit more of the guitar in the other, somewhere in the third verse of Can't Buy Me Love. Still it's all part of life's rich thingummy doo-dah.

Actually this was the band's first gig after two months of serious rehearsal, so now we're up and running. If you've got the party, we've got the sounds. Bonne année à tous!