sounds like chicken's first show was at joel's 21st birthday party in mid-2000. hugh left the band at the end of 2000 due to other commitments and was replaced by tom dowding on guitar. tom was an extremely accomplished bass player and so nat decided to swap to playing guitar so that tom's talent could be fully utilised. the band decided they needed another horn and so after a number of unsuccessful audition attempts, in 2001 nat met natalie parker at university and invited her to a practice. natalie was initially apprehensive but was eventually convinced by the boys to join the band. during her second practice she was already laying down trumpet tracks on their first demo recording which ended up becoming the band's self-made demo ep, "slowly going the way of the chicken".