Showcase at 'The Talk' Norwich

Left home just after 2pm with just my Godin 6 string, FX pedal and suit bag loaded in the back of Jacqui’s Focus. That was all I needed because we were using Charlie’s gear as Zebra Express were also on the bill. Traffic was a bit slow ‘til I got on the A11 and then it was a clear run to Norwich and I found Oak Road and The Talk night club without any problem. I was glad I brought the Focus ‘cos the car park was getting full and the Galaxy would have been a problem to park. Got out the car and found Dave, Steve and Laura in Dave’s van sipping coffee. Dave had been there for quite a while helping Charlie with his gear and setting up the drums. It was about 3:30pm when Dave and I went into the venue to find a fairly chaotic scene developing. I found Charlie and his soundman Rick on the stage wiring stuff up by torchlight. He was short of an XLR lead but I couldn’t help ‘cos I had left my lead bag at home. Anyway I got my gear in and Charlie pointed me in the direction of a Vox AC30 which he had set up for guitar. It took me a few minutes to find out how to switch off the tremolo and find a tone to suit. In the end I used the normal channel which was a bit beefier than the top cut channel. He had it miked up with a Shure SM57 (the ideal choice in my opinion) and he’d set me up a SM57 to sing thru. I think Nige and Dave were similarly equipped. (the SM57 is reckoned to be better for female voices, so Charlie must have an inkling about our band!). Then I sorted out a crib sheet for “Just One Look” so Charlie could stand in on bass for the sound check. Several other acts were sound checking through the house system whilst all this was going on. We got to our spot and we had a bit of trouble with the bass drum sound, it was picking up a rattle and was none too deep in tone. I fiddled around with the mic placement a bit until we got rid of the rattle. But Charlie wasn’t really happy with middley sound, still it was the best that could be done in the time available. So we ran through a couple of verses and middle 8 of “Just One Look” with Charlie on bass. The onstage sound was not what we were used to. The guitar was plenty loud enough as was the bass and Dave’s mic but I couldn’t hear my vocal and Steve confirmed it was hardly audible out front. On the whole the sound was much louder and middlier than we are used to. Charlie and Rick made a few adjustments to the mix and we tested it out; they had upped my front of house mic volume but the monitor was up as far as was safe. They assured us we’d get a fine mix out front on the night. So we agreed that was good enough and cleared the stage for other acts. By then it was about 6pm, so we put our clothes in the men’s dressing room and went out front to listen to the final soundchecks. I was pleased to see the bar had opened up so we got a round of beers in and rested up. Dave did a circuit of glad handing and introduced me to Mark Carter who was viewing acts on the evening. Nige arrived and Dave orientated him backstage while I got a beer in for him. Steve showed me the running order. We were on 5th and it was at this point it dawned on me that at the end of our show we needed to do a one minute interview with John Chandler who was compereing on the night. Dave thought it best that I did it. Nige arrived to listen to an excellent jazz trio who were backgrounding up to showtime – featuring a really great guitarist. I remembered to tell Nige to stick with Charlie’s bass amp sound and control tone from the bass. Then we had the house organist come up and ask what intro outro organ music we wanted – in the end we agreed none! Suddenly it was 6:30pm and it was show time. The first act on was a very impressive 80’s tribute show – featuring Freddie Mercury, Maddona etc. A lot of the sound was programmed from a Korg Triton, but the guitar was live and he played well. A very professional start off only marred by a bit of radio link interference on the guitar. The next few acts were mainly girly solo artistes and duo’s - all very good though. After much discussion we decided to wear the red shirts with white ties for our spot so we went and got changed. First Dave needed the toilet so he had to set off back from the dressing room to the gents. Then I needed to pass water. Nige watched the door whilst I made use of the sink (like a Blackpool guest house in the 50’s), fortunately he was able to hold off the Madonna look alike from the first band who wanted to come in to retrieve their suit bags. Suitably relieved, when Dave returned, I agreed a last minute reduction in the running order with the guys, dropping “Sweet Caroline” and shortening “Just One Look”. Then the 4th act finished and there was a break in proceedings whilst the first act moved their gear and Charlie, Dave, Nigel and I moved our gear into place for our set. Unfortunately, in the process some of the other groups drum staging fell on the boom stand I was using and broke it. So I worked round it by unscrewing the mic clip from the boom and I put it straight on the stand. I turned round to see Dave tripping in the dark and brushing into his music stand which fell over, breaking the light. We had no time for a plan B, so there was a brief moment of panic ‘til Nigel suggested that “Dave really knew the words, he only used the book as a prop, he’d be fine and in the event of any forgetting we would cover him”, 30 seconds later the curtain came back and we were on. I stepped forward to the mic, hit the A chord and we were off. It sounded loud and a lot less smooth than we were used to but we had no control so we just went for it. Nigel said later he saw Rick abandon his post on the mixing desk as soon as we started. We were soon at the end of the first song. There was some applause and Dave did his best to introduce the Shadows despite a long echo on the mic. I went out onto the dance floor offering a rubber guitar to any dance partners to no avail. So off we went again. I could hear out front that the guitar and bass were quite loud compared to the drums, but we got a better mix when the toms came in. The guitar sound wasn’t as clean as I like but it certainly cut through and we finished in good order to some applause. Nige did a well paced Beatle intro and Dave threw out my wig; a bit short so I couldn’t quite catch it and had to get it off the floor. My mic seemed a bit low in volume for the start of “Eight Days” but Rick was back on the job and seemed to fix it as we went. “Can’t Buy Me Love” went OK and again we finished in good order. Then I did the Elvis intro. I thought I paced it well and we got a bit of a titter as we talked through the subject of a guest artiste recently seen in a chip shop in Bolton arriving in the building. Nige and I started off the A riff to bring Dave on and good fellow that he is, he stood up loud and proud to show who he was meant to be. It was hard for me to see his silence gesture so I think he had to do it a couple of times before we stopped. Then we played “The Wonder of You”. I thought we did this fairly well and we got the big ending close to what we had arranged. I confused the start to “Pretty Woman” by mentioning Gene Pitney but we got off to an OK rendition with Dave doing a fine, “and its goodnight from the Foot Tappers” bit at the end - and then we were finished, or so I thought. I suddenly remembered I had to do one minute chat with John Chandler! So I strode back to the front of the stage and did a confused chat about holidays before reminding the audience that we were ‘a compact, affordable band available for gigs in the New Year’. We came off please it was behind us. After changing I headed for the bar. I resisted the temptation to have a strong Stella and settled for a Carling lager shandy instead. We watched the other acts for an hour or so, including Zebra Express who were very loud with an incredibly filling twangy bass sound. Dave did the glad handing again and Nige got some feedback on our performance from one of his mates in “Thick and Thin”. He reported that his mate said the band sounded fine - you couldn’t compare an honest live band sound with pre-recorded backings. Charlie and Rick had also said the band sounded fine, but Steve said the snare was absent and (as I suspected) the guitars and Dave’s mic were a bit too high in the mix. It turned out that there was no signal coming from the snare mic (could be a battery if it’s a condenser mic?) Time was marching on so Dave took his van round the back and we helped him load up. I was getting a bit tired by 10:30pm so I set off home after we loaded up, but the guys stayed on a bit longer. Had a good run back on a cold night with a full moon home for 11:30pm. The next day Dave found he had left his mic stand at the gig, he was going back to search for it but it could be another casualty. Made me think of it in war terms so I have analogised the detailed description above with the following first world war summary:“We left the trenches (dressing room), went over the top (onto the stage), did our duty (played) and dodged the bullets (audience reaction); we retired in good order with no fatalities but sadly had some casualties (losing a mic stand or two and a music light) in the battle. We are sending out a stretcher party to recover one of the casualties (Daves Mic Stand) and we hope the Generals (Agents) will award some medals (gigs), but at least we’ll be mentioned in dispatches and talked about as brave soldiers (they did their bit with an honest sound).” The next day we found Mark Carter had put about 4 minutes of the show on You Tube.