I’d been a fan of Miranda Sex Garden since hearing a remix of their “Gush Forth My Tears” single back in 1991 but had never seen them live. By 1998 they had released five albums/EPs , with the last being “Fairytales of Slavery” in 1994.

Surprisingly I’d never seen a gig at The Monarch before, which given it’s place in Camden’s music scene was pretty astounding. This was also the first gig that I went to with my then girlfriend, Delphine, whom I’d started seeing the previous month.

The support band was a group called The Tide. Not to be confused with either The Tides (who formed in 2002) or another band called The Tide who formed in 2015. I’ve no information about The Tide I saw here, apart from they were on the better side of average, but not someone I’d probably see again.

A number of the members of Miranda Sex Garden had classical backgrounds, and were also in The Medieval Babes, who sang in a range of traditional medieval songs and poetry as well as new original tracks using medieval instruments and singing in a number of languages – such as Latin, Middle English, Cornish, French, Gaelic and Russian.

Miranda Sex Garden were very enjoyable live, and it was great to see them in a small venue like The Monarch.