Acoustic Tour, Piccadilly Records, Manchester (18/3/99)
This was the second of Witness' acoustic in store tour and marked the moment that the press began to show proper interest in them.
It was the first chance that most people had got to see them since the release of Quarantine, their debut single, and they didn't fail to impress the fairly small gathering of onlookers.
Being a fairly small shop, Gerard and Ray had to squeeze their equipment into the area behind the counter. Taking up even more room was a cameraman filming the whole set and annoyingly obstructing the view for many people.
They began with Scars, before playing a few tasters from the then-forthcoming album, along with Quarantine. They finished it off with Scars, due to sound problems at the beginning of the set when they first played it.
After the set, Gerard and Ray stopped to sign stuff and chat to fans, whilst Scars played over the shops speakers on repeat.
My first impressions were that small acoustic shows like this are what seem to suit Gerard best, as he seems to be much more at ease than up on stage, with the rest of the band. However, I was later to discover that this is not the case and Gerard had been in fact, in his own words, "shitting it" before the gig!
Dylan Harris