We had had a couple of weeks off the band. I had immediately succumbed to a cold and a bad back. Jacqui and I were planning to pay a visit to Carl in Spain, but he had arrived back in the UK and fortunately we hadn’t booked any flights. So we spent some time catching up with jobs around the house and garden with Carl doing the ‘heavy’ work! He’s now gone to stay with my sister for a while so no roady for this resumption of banding at Caister. During my week off I set up the Bose for a health check. After I cleaned a layer of dust off the T1 mixer, I spent some time ‘improving’ the guitar settings. I set up the parametric EQ cantered on 100Hz to filter out most of the very low frequencies and raised the low and mid on the three band Z EQ to compensate for the loss of low end power with a boost in the low mids. While I was at it I pushed up Mick and my mic aux sends to 75% to increase reverb on these two mics a tad. I set off for the gig at 5pm on a cloudy, cool day threatening rain. I took it steady and arrived at the community centre at 6:30pm as planned. The guvnor PJ can be a bit disorganised so I was pleased to see ‘Sky High” were advertised on the board. Mick was already there and loaded in. I had just started to load in when Nige arrived reporting a noisy rear wheel bearing? He drove up and down the car park but I couldn’t hear anything amiss? By the time we got back in Mick was about set up with his Roland electronic kit. I was disappointed there wasn’t much room on stage. In the end Nige decided to set up at the front on some self assembly ‘Top of the Pops” staging we found. This wasn’t ideal from a show or a sound perspective but best we could reasonably do without starting set up again and moving Mick more over to my side. On a positive note: Mick’s lights made a good impact on a dark stage and we would be able to see what we were doing. I told Nige I would volunteer to go forward next time! Mick’s V drums sounded just great for this gig, his acoustic kit would be too powerful. During our time off I had arranged The Thymes “Miss Grace” and asked the boys to be prepared to play it at this gig. As it happened we had time for a bit of a sound check so we were able to run it though (and a bit of rock’n’roll as well). Despite Nige’s Bose being well forward the balance was OK on stage. Stevie Styles had commented that at the Kingfisher my high harmonies were too loud over Mick’s vocal so I added a lot of top to Mick’s mic to get it to cut though a bit more. (Mind you this was at odds with the bar keeper there who said he couldn’t hear my announcements?) Trouble with that gig was there was no space on the stage to get sound dispersion out of the Bose and Mick’s headset mic just doesn’t give the same quality of sound as even a Shure SM58. We set off to get changed in a storeroom with no lights. Shock horror – I couldn’t find my waistcoats! So we decided to do the gig in white shirts and black ties. PJ had asked us to play quietly and check our volume with the audience. Although I had toyed with the idea of changing the start I decided to play safe and called for “Foot Tapper” to open. Despite the peculiar placement of the Bose, the on stage sound was good and we got a good round of applause from the 20 or so in the room. As part of our introductions we took a straw poll of the audience regarding volume. Most said it was just right - a good start! But we continued to play it safe with repertoire carryng on “Just One Look, Heartbeat and Cathys Clown” by which time I had increased Mick’s mic volume to get a better vocal balance. We played on through a lightweight selection getting a generally good response. I got the boys to do “Hippy Hippy Shakes” so I could test out the guitar solo I had been perfecting in our time off. I was delighted to see it fitted pretty well. Not much dancing going on but the audience were paying attention, singing along and looking like they were enjoying it. We gave “The Green Green Grass” an airing and we finished off with the Beatles medley. As I handed out the wigs we got a good laugh from the crowd so we hammed it up a bit, with Nige and I sniggering away when Mick told the audience: “he hoped he wouldn’t look stupid in the wig”. The medley went well and we finished to a warm applause. During a long break for bingo a string of lights fell down from the ceiling. One of the bar men came over to fix it and we had to shift some of the cases to help him get a ladder out. He made a few attempts to rehang it but every time he did a few more strings would fall down. In the end we suggested he power down and just gather the several fallen strings together to trap in a ceiling tile as a temporary fix! By then it was time to resume for set 2. We opened with “Under the Sun, Tambourine Man and the Searchers”. The Searchers went pretty well and was definately improved at the start with Mick getting the bass harmony going in "Sugar and Spice". I now need to sort out with Nigel who does what with the close and high lines in "Needles and Pins". After that we moved on through some newer repertoire with “How Sweet It Is” “Daydream Believer” and the two “How Long”’s by Ace and the Eagles. Although we’ve been playing these for 6 months or so I’m still having a occasional problems remembering chords – nothing the audience would notice but annoying to me. I suppose it take longer to get into the fingers as you get older! Our audience was down to about 15 now but still enthusiastic and sometimes we’d get some dancing going. We finished off with “Words” at about 10:50pm with only about 6 left in the room. As we sat down for a short break. A lady came over to say how much she and her fella had enjoyed it but unfortunately they had to go. They loved the variety of repertoire, that we had three singers in the band and played songs they knew; and they felt bad about going - but they would definitely spread the word for next time. No problem I said and we thanked them for their attention. As they left we looked round and the other 4 had gone as well. PJ had also left the building so Mick had a word with the barkeep who said just play another 15 minutes and you can wrap up early. We opened up our final set with “Sky High” to give it an airing. Then we did “Miss Grace” which skipped along nicely - just got to watch the middle 8 and bring in some backing vocals and strings. We finished off by busking “My Girl” with Nige singing lead. Mick and I did some good backing singing and, apart a bit of untogetherness in the solo and key change, it went very well. Although not well attended, the small audience had been good and it had actually been a quite a good night for the band. We were able to get packed, loaded and on the road by midnight. It was windy and wet on the way home but I made good time - getting in about 1:20am. Ironically I found my waistcoats in the bag the next day. I blame it on the lack of light in the storeroom not my ageing eyes!
