Toftwood Social Centre

Our first gig back after New Years Eve, and our first gig with Mick as a full time member (not dep). During January I had been on a worldwide holiday to Vietnam and New Zealand. I had flown in from Auckland NZ on Monday after a 36 hour journey and was still a bit out of sorts, but looking forward to playing again and having a beer with the boys! I had an uneventful run over to Toftwood in misty, relatively mild conditions but, as usual, I missed the turning for the club and had to turn round and come back. I found Nigel had just arrived and was waiting for the doors to open. Mick arrived a few minutes later and we just had chance to meet and greet before the door opened. Load in is easy here and set up went well considering we might have forgotten how it all works. Having seen a band in NZ that suffered from excessive bass frequencies on the guitar, I reduced the bass on the T1 to learn from that experience. This would give Nige a bit more space to play in the soundscape. Initially I had a bit of feedback on the mic; but I found by toeing in the Bose a little bit, I was able to clear it. Mick set up a Audio Technica radio mic to reduce wiring clutter. He was saying he might use a headset mic to get rid of the large mic stand he has. He understands the drawback being unable to back off the mic, but thinks he can control volume using his voice. Awareness is the key! Looking round there were quite a few in compared to our last couple of outings there, which was encouraging. Got changed into the black shirt, black tie and white waistcoat for an 8:30pm start. Must organise some red ties for variety. We set off with “Foot Tapper” this was OK until the end which didn't happen? Mick was set up a fair way forward and had trouble seeing Nige and me indicating the finish so he just carried on! After we finally finished it, we did some intro's and got on with an easy paced Foot Tappery start. Quite a good on stage sound. We did get a few takers for Mick's waltzy rendition of “He'll Have to Go” and generally we were going down well. We were pleasantly surprised to see Jenny and Hilda arrive. At the same time Nige wanted to take the show on a pace, so we did “Lady is a Tramp” and then I announced “Rock Around the Clock”. For some reason this got off to an incredibly fast start and what normally takes 3 minutes to play thru took about 2! After that I made a more relaxed start on “Blue Suede Shoes” and that got a couple of dancers up. Pursuing the rock'n'roll theme I opened up with “Move It”. Mick and I got at cross pieces on the beat but I just had to go for it. Once we got going it filled the dance floor nicely. We played on somewhat inconsistently with a mix of rock'n'roll and country and finished the set with “Words” Had a word with Jen and Hilly in the break; Jen is doing better and was delighted to have just got a Ford Ka to replace her big old Vauxhall. The ladies would only be staying for half an hour or so. We resumed with “Somewhere Under the Sun”. This got a good reception despite my fumbled guitar solo and we ploughed on through a more dancey set 2 than usual. The band was still a bit untogether at times and we overcame some unforced errors but, on the whole, the audience were liking what we were doing and quite a few were dancing. We reached a peak with an improvised version of “Lets Dance” and then as the dancers took a rest, I took the opportunity to have a bash at “Take It Easy”. My voice was well out of practice but I think with a few tweaks we can make this a strong part of our repertoire. More of the same for the third set with lots of dancing and a few rockier songs like “Alright Now” and a requested “Shakin All Over” which took a toll on my voice. We went for a wrap up with Mick doing a good “Never Walk Alone”; but we got shouts for more, so we encored with “Saw Her Standing There”. They still wanted more so we closed off with an enthusiastic rendition of the Spencer Davis sequence. I was dead tired packing up but, strangely, got more lively as we completed. It was cold outside but we had a bit of an inquest on why we had been a tad untogether, concluding it was down to Mick being too far forward to see what Nige and I were up to and general rustiness from being off the road for a month. Despite this we had gone down well and the guvnor was pleased. During the discussion I sensed we have some differences between us as to how best to improve band repertoire and performance; but I believe a bit of tension in opinions is healthy and we should be able to bridge those differences to improve our standing as a flexible, versatile band suitable for most types of gig. Driving home wasn't too bad, I was actually more awake then than I was in the third set. Got in about 1:30am and slept through to 10 am. Unfortunately I seemed to have gone down with a sniffy cold.