The two Chris's we're going early to set up their 'new' stuff so I
thought I'd hang back for a 7 arrival.
Jacqui and I set off about 6:40pm on a pleasant Autumn evening - it took
all of 15 minutes to get there - the pub is just North of the railway crossing
in Elmswell. I saw Chris the drum eyeing
up a Kebab stall as I turned in and parked next to his car. He came over and said "they are
resurfacing the crossing tonight and it will be closed from just after
7pm" "Good job we set off when
we did" I said - thinking about a long diversion to get North of the
railway. It was an easy load in through
double doors to the large bay window where we would be playing. The Chris's were already set up and there was
quite a bit of room to work with. I put
the Bose right at the back and as centrally as I could. I positioned myself well forward and out of
the bay so I had room to swing the guitar.
Nice polished floor I noted (thinking about a Shadows stagger?) I was just plugging the last bits in when in
walks Steve Lemon with his lady - Lou.
Big hugs all around - he is looking very well and obviously enjoying
life! I finished set up and checked the
mix. It was my intention to play quieter
than last time out so I set the mics well below feedback. Chris the bass came
up for sound check. The bass though the
new Ashdown amp sounded just great: a deep and bouncy sound using a bit of
sub-bass, but well compressed into the
bass area of the soundscape. We could
all hear it clearly as well - a massive improvement! We did a bit of "Just One Look" as
a sound check but the harmoniser was too low.
I fixed that and we re-tested - all good and we were ready to rock!
We changed into white tees and black waistcoats for set 3. Yet again I forgot to turn the mics on for the opener "Great Balls". I gave myself a good telling off and we restarted! Still only about 25 in the pub but they applauded well. Despite putting the time in during the week to fix the horn solos in "Dance The Night Away" I decided to skip it 'cos we would be hard pressed to get through the list by finish time. I got Chris to get on with the drum beat to "Pretty Woman" as I announced it and we did a pretty good job of it I thought. Next was "Saturday Night at Movies into Come on Over" I was basking in the success of finally getting the middle "aahs" section right with the unnatural double bars of Bs and E's at the end and lost concentration as we smoothly entered "Come On Over"; only to be woken up a minute later as I forgot the key change I had been imploring Chris the bass to get right (and he did!). I caught up quickly but gave myself another mental telling off! My voice was feeling a little tired by now, so I brought forward "Trilogy". We got off to a nicely sensitive start but I shortened the linking bars of C on guitar to move things along. The boys followed without a blink and played their parts really well. When I brought the strings in they sounded pretty good in this room. Also the pace was spot on and we built the song confidently to the climax just before the solo. Because it was so well timed and 'band felt' I had plenty of time to switch from strings to flute and turn the guitar down; resulting in the flute solo I had always intended but hadn't been able to achieve with this band yet. Same as we exited the solo, Chris took his time to bring in the start of the large tom roll giving me enough time to switch the guitar back in and flute to strings. So the final crescendo was spot on and only marred slightly by the lack of sustain from my vocal on the last line. The audience went extra large in response and sustained their applause for at least a minute giving me time to catch my breath. Fantastic response from only 25 people. Voice was going and I needed an instrumental so I called for "Albatross" as a change. It went pretty well. We got back on track with "Sweet Caroline" which had the 20 odd sing-a-longers raising the rafters. Then I took a bit of stock. We had about 3 numbers to do, so I called for a rocky finish. We opened the mini sequence with "Hippy Hippy Shake". We did this pleasingly tight and as we finished I got straight on into the riff for "Caroline" which went surprisingly well for a first outing. I had been on the net to sort out my guitar riffs and was quite pleased with the result on the night. Chris the drum got the chorus harmony spot on and we finished with 3 rounds of guitar riff with the middle one quiet like the record. He even did a bit of stand up drumming! Once again we got a good response from the about 20 left now.
I called "Johnny B Goode" as the last number and that went well as usual. We got the 'goodnights' from the band out in better order (still not perfect though) and finished well together. We 'rewarded' the remaining few in the pub with "Born to be Wild" as an encore. This went very well up to the end but we need to work out a better finish - at the moment its a bit of an improvised freak out! We were slightly over time as we finished, but some folks came up to thank us for a great evening. Including the couple had come to see us again after our appearance at the Railway Tavern - they had stayed all night and finished with a B52 cocktail as we packed up. Gotta admire their stamina! Steve came over to say how impressed he was: 3 great musicians, really good sound and surprised at how well we did the rockier numbers (not something we did so much in the Foot Tappers). Lou thanked us as well. She (and Steve) go to see Mark James quite a bit and she said it was great to hear a live band for a change rather than backing tracks. They set off back to Norwich and we finished pack up. Once we were loaded and ready to go I realised we would have to go back across country 'cos the rail crossing was still being worked on. It was a bit misty as we wended our way through rural Suffolk but eventually we found a way to Norton and then it was an easy run home down the A14. In my opinion this was the best of the three nights on the East Enders tour: having completed the tour the band is now working well together; we cracked the gremlins and improved the sound. A bit more work on the vocals and I think we will be ready for anything.
Had a beer and a bit of a chat with Steve before we got changed into the
red shirts and black waistcoats for the off.
We had the luxury of the kitchen to get changed in, but I didn't realise and got changed in the
gents before I found out - oh dear. The
landlady had asked for a start at 9pm. A
bit late by our standards, I was well
into my second pint by the time we got up to play. There were only about 25 in the pub as we
opened up with the usual few, but they
were quite receptive to the band and banter.
One couple had come to see us again after our appearance at the Railway
Tavern a couple of weeks previously. Soundwise it was a bit dry so I upped the
echo a tad, but it was a good balance
and we started to enjoy playing together and hearing some of the
subtleties. I was a little nervy as we
did "Smiling" and got the words the wrong way round but it was well
received and we carried on through a creditable set 1. Got a bit of banter going with some of the
younger folk there who claimed they hadn't heard of the Beatles as I prepared
them for "8 Days a Week". It went
down well though, as did the rock n roll that followed. I had skipped "Guitars Cadillacs"
earlier and that left us in need of a filler as we approached the 40 minute
mark. No problem - I dropped into
"Be Bop A Lula" and the boys followed effortlessly. I was intending to finish with "Nights
in White Satin" but opted for the easier "Green Grass" when we
got there and we played it pretty well closing to good applause.
Back on for set 2, we opened with "Apache". I couldn't resist the opportunity to do the walk and was rewarded by a great round of applause.
Then we followed the well established set 2 flow
for the first 30 minutes. Bit of
sixties, followed by "Delilah and Daydream Believer" as
sing-a-long, then some rock'n'roll. I had replaced "Rock Around the
Clock" with "Jailhouse" in the pub rock set list to give it a
bit more bite and that went down well with this audience. At the 30 minute point we tried out a 70s
sequence of: "Don't Stop, Yellow River and Amarillo". First time out for the latter two. Actually we played them well I thought. Chris
the drum's "Yellow River" vocal worked well and it was great to add
my high harmony to it. He returned the
favour with his high harmony as I sang "Amarillo". And Chris the bass came in with a low line on
this as well. This is the start of us getting
some more substance in our vocal arrangements and I plan to keep us at it by picking
popular harmony songs we know and can do easily. We did "Wonder of You" to
finish. I messed up some of the words
but the audience was singing along well so it didn't matter too much. I need to work up a plan B for the final
vocal phrase for when I'm not quite on form.
I got the pitching right this week but, still breathless from the last
gasp of my cold, couldn't sustain it. Ah well the audience filled in well
enough!
We changed into white tees and black waistcoats for set 3. Yet again I forgot to turn the mics on for the opener "Great Balls". I gave myself a good telling off and we restarted! Still only about 25 in the pub but they applauded well. Despite putting the time in during the week to fix the horn solos in "Dance The Night Away" I decided to skip it 'cos we would be hard pressed to get through the list by finish time. I got Chris to get on with the drum beat to "Pretty Woman" as I announced it and we did a pretty good job of it I thought. Next was "Saturday Night at Movies into Come on Over" I was basking in the success of finally getting the middle "aahs" section right with the unnatural double bars of Bs and E's at the end and lost concentration as we smoothly entered "Come On Over"; only to be woken up a minute later as I forgot the key change I had been imploring Chris the bass to get right (and he did!). I caught up quickly but gave myself another mental telling off! My voice was feeling a little tired by now, so I brought forward "Trilogy". We got off to a nicely sensitive start but I shortened the linking bars of C on guitar to move things along. The boys followed without a blink and played their parts really well. When I brought the strings in they sounded pretty good in this room. Also the pace was spot on and we built the song confidently to the climax just before the solo. Because it was so well timed and 'band felt' I had plenty of time to switch from strings to flute and turn the guitar down; resulting in the flute solo I had always intended but hadn't been able to achieve with this band yet. Same as we exited the solo, Chris took his time to bring in the start of the large tom roll giving me enough time to switch the guitar back in and flute to strings. So the final crescendo was spot on and only marred slightly by the lack of sustain from my vocal on the last line. The audience went extra large in response and sustained their applause for at least a minute giving me time to catch my breath. Fantastic response from only 25 people. Voice was going and I needed an instrumental so I called for "Albatross" as a change. It went pretty well. We got back on track with "Sweet Caroline" which had the 20 odd sing-a-longers raising the rafters. Then I took a bit of stock. We had about 3 numbers to do, so I called for a rocky finish. We opened the mini sequence with "Hippy Hippy Shake". We did this pleasingly tight and as we finished I got straight on into the riff for "Caroline" which went surprisingly well for a first outing. I had been on the net to sort out my guitar riffs and was quite pleased with the result on the night. Chris the drum got the chorus harmony spot on and we finished with 3 rounds of guitar riff with the middle one quiet like the record. He even did a bit of stand up drumming! Once again we got a good response from the about 20 left now.
I called "Johnny B Goode" as the last number and that went well as usual. We got the 'goodnights' from the band out in better order (still not perfect though) and finished well together. We 'rewarded' the remaining few in the pub with "Born to be Wild" as an encore. This went very well up to the end but we need to work out a better finish - at the moment its a bit of an improvised freak out! We were slightly over time as we finished, but some folks came up to thank us for a great evening. Including the couple had come to see us again after our appearance at the Railway Tavern - they had stayed all night and finished with a B52 cocktail as we packed up. Gotta admire their stamina! Steve came over to say how impressed he was: 3 great musicians, really good sound and surprised at how well we did the rockier numbers (not something we did so much in the Foot Tappers). Lou thanked us as well. She (and Steve) go to see Mark James quite a bit and she said it was great to hear a live band for a change rather than backing tracks. They set off back to Norwich and we finished pack up. Once we were loaded and ready to go I realised we would have to go back across country 'cos the rail crossing was still being worked on. It was a bit misty as we wended our way through rural Suffolk but eventually we found a way to Norton and then it was an easy run home down the A14. In my opinion this was the best of the three nights on the East Enders tour: having completed the tour the band is now working well together; we cracked the gremlins and improved the sound. A bit more work on the vocals and I think we will be ready for anything.
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