It was a while ago now, but from memory, which is as usual very poor, a damned
good night was had by all. Lucky really, since all that had gone on before had
almost cancelled the whole evening. This isn't the place to go into what happened,
but Bomber and Martin-Shauna rescued the evening and went about ensuring that
it all went ahead, all in aid of young Joshua. A quick thanks to DJ-Steve-O for
letting us still use the hall, though.
Well, lots of setting up, some relaxed moments, some not quite so. One of the
highlights must surely be Mac and his riser (!). Story as follows. Colin, bless
his polyester socks, purloined some extra stage extensions, which gave the playing
area a very much needed boost. Unfortunately, we'd run out of blocks, so Mac was
going to have to sit on the stage. But was he having any of this? Naaa. Off he
went, and managed to find 2 small blocks which were literally just big enough
to fit his drums on. In fact I think he even taped some of the legs down to stop
them sliding off the edge!! Right, so he'd managed to raise he drums, but that
meant no space left for his seat. So his options were (i) play standing up for
2 hours (ii) play using a pogo stick(iii) find some other dodgy way of raising
his seat. So, number 3 it was, and off he went again, found two old chairs and
2 planks (???!!!) and balanced his stool on these! Howon earth he didn't fall
off, we don't know! But he was happy, he could now see everyone, and more importantly,
they could see him!
The other players were all good (some un-nervingly so!) which filled a good hour
and a half, then we came on and did the 2 hours. Some of it good, some bad....nothing
unusual there then! Overall, a long day, but then it was all for a good cause,
and hopefully alot of money was raised for the Joshua Tree fund. (AA)
First "bread and butter" gig of the year. As usual, we turn up and low and
behold.....nothing cleared for us! Bloody pool tables! Must let the locals finish
their game (paying punters and all that!). So, we hang around outside, giving
us a good excuse to (i) freeze (ii) listen to the excellent version of Down The
Dustpipe that The Oracle has mixed down for us, from our last practice session.
Quite surprising how he's pulled this one out of the bag, since we all played
pretty badly!
Onto the gig. Not alot to say of course, apart the age old "we've had complaints
from the neighbours, you'll have to turn down" routine. Oh joy. But, as it goes,
we knocked down a peg or two, and sounded pretty good for it. Volume isn't everything,
and the landlord reckoned it sounded pretty good around the pub. Fair enough!
Gig went OK, we were a bit rough in places, since we haven't really played the
set since mid-Jan. But then some of it was really tight. Odd, but thats the way
it goes! 4500x went like a thrash band, while I reckon BFM was probablyone of
the best reditions we have done! Oh well. Maybe the various distractions didn't
help, with the youngsters (thats Cancer Twin No.1 and Billy Bomber) having their
tongues licking the carpet half the night!!
As ever, we say ta for giving us a little support to Gaffa and Louise, Martin-Shauna,
Mr C. Rappy, the one, the only, the Cantellow Crooner himself, Dom and Potters
Bar Ben. Good of you to turn up: do you really enjoy it that much??!!!! (AA)
First gig for, what, 4 or 5 months? WD40 aplenty then, to loosen those rusty joints!
A good sized stage area sees us get set up, replete with new drummer - Carl -
and what can only be described as a spare 737 wing. Seems Tall Bloke Arris has
gone and got himself a new keyboard! It may be a 737 wing, but at least it replaces
the old bi-plane he used to run! Very smart! So what happens next? Well he's set
up nicely, about to get the wing up to speed, when…bang…. his seat looses
a leg! If its not one thing its another! So MartinShauna is called on, and allowed
to show us his talents with Duck tape......voila!......mended chair.
Next up, my embarrassing moment…..TB'A does his thing with hurdling onto
the stage, whilst me, a touch shorter and shall we say portly-er, tries a similar
thing, only to fall flat on my face. Well, at least there's no-one around to see
it! Lessoned learned, means I climb up on subsequent occasions. Sound check sees
us (1) NOT mic up the drummer for the first time in years (and its quite a large
room to), (2) do a full 6 or 7 minutes (bleeding record for us!!), (3) hear Darren
saying he was so quiet that he couldn't hear himself……might be the case
on stage, but out in the room, he was loud as anything! We even…yes that's
right….had to turn Mark up!!!
Come 9, and a reasonable crowd seems to have ventured in. So we get on with it,
with the usual no introduction and Drone build up. And the gig itself? Well, lets
just say we were all amazed at how well it actually went. Considering Carl had
only had a few weeks and half a dozen rehearsals to even get familiar with the
music, he played an absolute blinder. We had also tried to duplicate Darrens sound,
not to enhance it as such, but to use a small amp I'd bought along more as a monitor
for me, so that I could at least hear something of what he was playing. And it
worked very well, his normal sound wasn't affected and we got to hear what he
was widdling on our side of the stage. Probably do that again, where space allows.
It all seemed to go down very well, polite applause after all the songs. The main
bloke did say that if they don't like a band, you'll just get people wandering
out into the other bar and a stoney silence. Therefore we were liked…….well,
there's some logic in there for ya! Carl looked, and was, absolutely knackered,
we all were in fact, but were asked to do a couple of more numbers…..we of
course duely obliged……but that was enough. Job done.
Truly one of our best gigs for years, the difference Carl makes is huge. Long
may he continue to like the stuff we do and not do a runner!! We even got asked
for autographs! Well there you go…..not something that happens a lot, shall
we say! Not sure who it was for, but Dad-bloke brings his young daughter along
saying she wants your monikers…….hmmmm…..OK……anything
you say!
New songs out of the bag for the first time…..Comfortably Numb, Paranoid and
Sharp Dressed Man. And Darren got
to do a solo rendition of Dirty Water (no-one else knew it), 'cos the the Club
President was calling for it! Well done that man….always good to gain a gold
star or two. Anyway, promises of we will definitely be back are heard (but then
we've heard that before). Maybe next time we'll get the posters sorted out and
some advertisement, and get more of a crowd in.
For completions sake, this was the set list:
Intro
Caroline
Wanderer
Something 'Bout You Baby
Dont Waste My Time
MEDLEY CONSISTING OF:
Mystery Song
Railroad
Most Of The Time
Wild Side Of Life
Dear John
Again Again
Slowtrain - END OF MEDLEY
Jam Side Down
All Over But The Crying - (GEORGIA SATELLITES)
Paper Plane
Cant Get Enough - (BAD COMPANY)
Sweet Home Chicago
Solid Gold
Roll Over
Old Time Rock and Roll
Whaterver You Want
Living On An Island
Break The Rules
Juniors Wailin
Comfortably Numb - (PINK FLOYD)
Big Fat Mama
Down The Dustpipe
Spinning Wheel Blues
Sharp Dressed Man - (ZZTOP)
Paranoid - (BLACK SABBATH)
Summer of 69 - (BRYAN ADAMS)
Rockin All Over The World
Bye Bye Johnny
The lead up to this one was a bit fraught. Many weeks ago, our rhythmic strummer let on that he had to go and entertain clients at a footy match
with an evening of debauchery afterwards. Maybe he'd be able to get back. This subsequently ended up with I can't make it at all. But because we'd let the landlord down
several times previously (illness, drummer problems), we decided to go it alone and do the gig anyway. One practice with me, Darren and Carl went very well,
and we left brimming with confidence. The one before the gig was the complete opposite! We needn't have worried though.
The place was....hmmm...not exactly teeming with punters. We set up anyway, and had Marks kit in place (in the off chance that he'd turn up.) Even if he didn't arrive, Mark Cantellow popped down, and helped with some guitaring
using Darrens spare Tele. Anyway, gear was all set up, and we were still a 3 piece. With almost minutes to spare, (well, not exactly, but I'm trying to make it sound a bit more dramatic!),
Colin arrives, trailing his brother with him. He gets his 737 wing set up, we do a bit of a sound check, and sit back and wait for 9.00.
9.00pm arrives...but the punters don't. We get on with it anyway, with MrC bringing in Caroline. Can't remember to much about the set, apart from....
...Carl's impromptue drum solo! Very funny. He'd been asking for a while about
doing a little solo bit in the middle of Roadhouse. We'd been saying yes...(we'd
told him he had to!!). So come 11ish, and we needed to stop pretty soon, so Darren
says something very quickly "keep it short, we'll play through it". I caught it,
Carl didn't! So we do a shortened version without the jigs and stuff and bring
the song to a close. Carl not knowing that we'd finished, thought we'd broken
for his solo, so we all stop and turn away for the next song, when Carl just lauches
into a physical tyrade on his battered skins! We stand and look, wandering what
he's doing, we're also nodding at him to stop, he's taking this as continue...you're
doing good! Eventually he gets the message and the song kind of stops in, how
can we say, an unorthodox manner!
...one of the few blokes at the bar looked scarily like the bloke featuring in the current crop of Chilli Peppers videos...dancing away...I was waiting for him to come pouncing upto the band...
At the end of the night, I think we did ourselves justice, mostly because of Colins
presence adding the extra fill behind the lone guitar, along with MrC adding the
extra rhythm guitar on some songs. Favourites of the night for me...Paranoid,
love the song, everyone knows it, we play it well, and it breaks up the set a
bit. Also Comfortably Numb, fantastic song, we did it as a 3 piece, almost spot
on! Niiiiice!!!
Ron the landlord, did say afterwards, that it was particularly quiet for a Sat evening, but reckoned part of that was the bank holiday (OK, as long as you believe that!). We should be getting more bookings here for next year, so looks like it could be one of our regular haunts. Look forward to coming back in October. (AA)
A freebee this one, no slots left this year, so a Sunday graveyard gig is taken. Carl has just bought a brand new kit...that frightens us...he is loud enough with his old 800BC kit, forged from the finest stone and buffalo hide. Now that he has a new,
up to date kit, our ears will be taking a bit of a pounding, no doubt! And not to be beaten, Colin turns up with a new piano keyboard to, not quite his ex 737 wing, but more of a Lear jet, you know, quality and all that!
Smallish stage but we all eventually fit. To be honest, not a good sound, I think the stage acted like a giant speaker, and the bass was far too loud. Even with alot of low end bass rolled off, it was mush. And with Carl having fun on his new kit, everyone else had to turn up a
notch or two (not that Mark needs any prompting!!!) to keep pace with his volume. It all ended up being hugely loud. OK for a club venue but for a pub?!?! Oh well, the half dozen punters (we did say it was the weekly graveyard slot!) seemed to enjoy themselves, dancing was had, pats on our backs were given and as much applause as 6 people can give was provided.
Think we all enjoyed it, it was just good to do a gig again! (AA)
Last gig of the year, this one, and it turns out to be pretty damn good! Through various work stuff, holidays and flu's the band hasn't really been together too much over the past few months, so this could be one of those "rusty" type performances.
A bit of a squeeze fitting everything in, the playing area is pretty small, but once we're all in and set up, a sound check was had (3 mins tonight...wow!). Things sound OK ish, pretty echo-y though, but some people
across the bar say it sounds good.
The place starts to fill up, and the first half gets going. I think we all seemed to agree, it was OK, but not exactly lighting our fires. Polite applause was good, but the sound was pretty poor (for us, anyway). Not sure why, but the keyboards were droning a bit through the PA, and my bass seemed rather muddy to. Its odd how sounds change during the night. But we Carried On Regardless (yak yak yak),
and things started to pick up with a big applause for Sharp Dressed Man. We draw the first half to a close, running in at just over an hour and 5 mins. Time was late, so we had a quick break and got on with it again.
Second half sees more punters entering the lions den, with a nice little gathering in front of us to. Paper Plane gets going, then into Living On An Island and Break The Rules, and good applause after that little trio! Then, riding on a wave of confidence, we have a go at Comfortably Numb. And blimey! Good job we did. Its the subtle things that you sometimes pick up on, and CN really got the crowd going. Not in the "rockin'" sense, but...I dunno...appreciation...or admiration, difficult to put into words.
But you could really see lots of feet and hands tapping, Darren said he could see loads of people singing the words, even to the point of actually hearing them singing along, which he reckoned actually helped him sing the song to. He hit the solo excellently, and after the song was finished...huge cheer! Superb! Gave us a real buzz with that kind of feedback. We then launched straight into Paranoid, and the same response after that, aswell!! Summer of 69 was then chucked into the mix, to keep the crowd on the boil,
and Darren did a masterful job of getting them involved with a bit of a "I can't hear you" singalong! Well done that man! Anyway, back into some more Quo to keep the Quo fans happy, and Darren heaps the pressure on Colin
to do Spinning Wheel Blues. Singing, harp and keyboards, keeps our Essex Lad busy. And a fine job this fearless virtuoso does! Two encores later (RAOTW and Bye Bye Johnny) draws the evening to a close. A long hour and 15 mins felt shorter, which is good, it shows we enjoyed it to!
Landlord said good job, and rewards our expolits with 3 more gigs for next year. Good job to, great place to play and look forward to coming back.
A good 1st half and great 2nd half brings our year to a close. We agreed that the response to Comfortably Numb, Paranoid and Sharp Dress Man certainly showed that we are moving in the right direction. Of course the emphasis with the band remains firmly Quo based, but having the extra variety really pays off, as highlighted tonight. Hopefully next year will see 2,3 maybe 4 new songs sorted, which will
give the set a good balance of Quo stuff with a healthy sprinkling of other good quality favourites! With this in mind, we're looking forward to 2004 and getting the Parts roadshow back on the .... er.... road! Thanks to everyone who came along and enjoyed the evening, and hope to see you next year! Cheers! (AA)
