Again had a good run over and arrived at 6:40pm to find Mick already setting up his Sonor acoustic kit. The previous evening we had discussed whether he should use the electronic kit at this gig because stage space is a bit tight and volume needs to be contained; but in the end we all concluded that it might create the wrong impression on Mick’s first appearance there with us. Mick and I moved the DJ set up to the edge of the stage to give Nigel some more room but in doing so we covered up the lighting controller – which would cause problems later! Nige arrived a bit later than usual. He had been working on a laptop solution to provide stage prompting of music and repertoire. Once set up he demo’d it to me and Mick and it seems ‘just the job’ - controlled by hot keys it presents repertoire lists and you can drill down into the music / lyric / arrangement for individual songs or sequences. I decided to experiment with a significant bass cut on the guitar sound to clear the low middle of our soundscape. We got changed into the Foot Tappery white shirts, black ties and black waistcoats. We had a final brief about keeping the volume down, Nige and I had set masters to about “3 minutes to 12” (i.e. just below halfway on the Bose T1). Then we took to the stage for an 8:15pm start in a well filled concert room with the usual opening sequence. The sound was good apart from Mick’s headset mic being a bit distant again. There were some kids on the dance floor and there wasn’t any dancing going on early on but the audience looked very attentive so I quickly switched into banter mode and Nigel and Mick joined in as well. We resurrected the previous night’s banter that ‘Nigel is worried about people using IMAC on his body when he’s asleep’ as the intro to “Beautiful Body”. So it quite an entertaining show as we ploughed on with a more easy listening show than the previous night with number such as: “Peaceful Easy Feelling”, “Raining in My Heart”, Ferry Cross Mersey”, “Daydream Believer” and some laid back rock’n’roll with “All Shook Up” and “Blue Suede Shoes”. I got the boys wigged up to do the Beatles. We did the whole thing and it got a very good response. We finished off the first set with “Words” to close the set and it too got a very good reception as Nigel hammed up the “I’ve forgot the words Mog” routine. I noticed that Mick joined in on a close above harmony in places, so I switched to the bass harmony - I must remember to try to get Mick to do that consistently. We opened set 2 with “Under The Sun” and “Tambourine Man”. The kids were less evident and we had a few adults up and dancing as we continued with the “Searchers”. The set progressed through a mix of material to peak with the “Wonder of You – Sweet Caroline – Hi Ho Silver” sing-a-longa session. As it was an early finish we only had a short break before the final set where we played a bit more of the dancey stuff to mixed success. But as we came to “Unchained” the floor filled with slow dancers. But they soon cleared the floor when they heard I would be doing a Shadows walk demonstration; no one volunteered to accompany me as we played “Apache” but it went down a bomb. While I was out front I was able to assess the instrumental sound and the guitar was definitely under powered compared to normal so I made a note to restore the bass setting to zero dB. So we called “Walk Alone” as the last number and encored with “Saw Her Standing There” to finish. We had worked hard all night and had been well received but this final few numbers got a really great reception. We were well pleased with it and proud of our versatility in reading the audience to earn it. Despite the slightly weak guitar sound, I think we achieved a very listenable balance at this gig and Mick had proved that a loud acoustic kit can be held back in volume to suit. The staff were also very complimentary saying we were by far the best act they have there. Then it was pack and load up on cold night. Nigel nearly forgot his phone and ended up hammering on the door to get Sarah back to open up so he could retrieve it! I set off home via Norwich and was home for 1am.
