‘Ow do!
My, that was a hectic weekend, 4 gigs in 3 days, it’s all a bit of a blur, really.
I’ll try and recap for you…
Friday night, and a short-notice gig at the Mill House in Emerson’s Green.
At first we were concerned that Wesley might not let us play – but we figured Emma was close enough to the right height….
Nice and local, this’ll be an easy stress-free one, we thought.
Not entirely correctly.
It transpired that Stuart had forgotten quite how the drumming goes in the Dandy Warhols’ “Bohemian Like You”; particularly unfortunate since it’s the song we started the set with, and doubly so because it starts with the drums. So, Emma announces us, and Stuart starts playing – hoping that once he gets going it will all come back to him.
There follows several bars of randomised percussion as he tries to remember what to do, whilst I try to guess where to come in – eventually Ben and I agree on a likely moment, and take the plunge; and once we’re all going, it sorts itself out nicely.
There’s more drama a few songs later, as my guitar sound stops dead – a quick glance at my wireless shows dead batteries. Odd, they were freshly charged.
I snatch up my spares, put them in, and – still nothing, it says these ones are dead too.
The song has now gone on for at least a verse and a half with no guitar, and the others continue while I dash across to Ben, find his spare batteries, drop them in, and – hooray! A little blue light comes on.
Dash back across stage, switch everything off of mute, at the exact moment to be able to play the guitar solo.
I think we got more applause for that than usual, maybe we should make it a regular part of the show.
The rest of the evening passed without incident, and with us being vastly entertained by small children manically dancing.
Saturday afternoon, and a trundle across to the lovely Fishponds Party in The Park, a nice outdoor stage, a lovely sunny day, and we are on after an Elton John tribute act. I fervently hope that he stays in costume for the bus ride home.
As ever on such occasions, the onstage sound is a bit hit-and-miss; in fact, it was more miss than anything on this occasion (I’ve never heard so much bass in my life), although apparently it sounded fine out front – apart from the moment when I picked at random entirely the wrong chord to play, and the one where my overdrive pedal had a screaming fit and had to be taken out of service for the rest of the set. There were probably other such moments, but I can’t really remember…
There’s no rest for the wicked though, and shortly after packing down it was off home again to empty and reload the van ready for the evening, quickly bodge repair the naughty overdrive, inhale some food, and back out to the Trout in Keynsham.
A brilliant evening, the usual riotous (and messy) crowd, no equipment breakdowns, and a proper full-throttle stage sound – that’s better, we sound like us again!
Sunday morning dawned fair and bright – although the weather can be unpredictable at this time of year – and Stuart and I headed off to the Berkeley Show – even though we weren’t playing until the afternoon, we’d been advised to get the kit onsite before the thronging punters made this impossible.
So the pair of us spent a lazy day looking at huge tractors, pedigree heifers, and prize-winning vegetables. Later on the other two arrived and we had a very fine time playing to a cheery and appreciative crowd. I think we were actually helped by the fact that Emma was so tired she was almost delirious, and got the crowd to help her by pointing out things of interest – such as a life-size wooden cow being carried past, and a particularly attractive inflatable chicken, and even a notable ice-cream somebody was carrying.
She made such a point of emphasising how magnificent this particular comestible looked, that after we finished playing, Ivor from the ice cream stall gave us all as much ice cream as we could manage.
I can highly recommend it, as well.
<<Note: Alan is also available for commercial endorsement of other items, such as beer, pies, and Gibson Custom Shop Guitars. Just so you know.>>
Right then, coming up..
Friday 28th June – Cross Keys, Hanham
No idea if we’ve played here before. If we haven’t then it’s a first. If we have – then here we are again.
Saturday 29th June – Blackhawks MC Rally, Novers Hill
Oooh, I likes me a bike rally, so I does. Hopefully we can wheel out the Metallica, and the Maiden covers… \m/ \m/
Right, that’s your lot for today.
Square
on
A