ReTrio at the Oakley Festival Rougham

Chris the drum had arranged with neighbour Tracy to get us a slot in the afternoon at this charity event.  We had had a practice / get together on the Thursday and decided to do our 3rd set with a couple of additions to make it an hour.  It was a warm afternoon as I set off to pick up Chris the bass for the 5 mile drive to gig in a field behind the Eddington Arms in Rougham. We could hear a rock band playing as we arrived. Then we drove through security and passed a few words with Tracy on the gate before we drove onto the field and parked up.  The idea was there would be 2 band slots in tent;  one setting up and the other playing.  We were early so I got the beers in and we watched the rock band complete its set and a bit of the next band "The Muppits" do theirs as we waited for the rock band to clear their space.  This was a good band;  guitar bass and drums with a girl singer.  The guitarist had a PRS through a top of the range Fender amp and it sounded great with bits of sustain or jazzy clean when he needed it.  Their material was middle of the road but the guitarist was good enough to play string or horn pats on songs like "River Deep Mountain High"  to very good effect. He was also good at relaxed improvised between song banter. They didn't get much reaction so it didn't bode well for our spot.  We set up on a gravel floor and,  thanks to a tip,  using power from the pub rather than a generator.  I was doing it lite with no harmoniser or strings so set up didn't take too long.  The Muppits finished their set and we tested the pa.  No sound?  Ah! forgot to switch the Bose on! 

 

 

 

 

 

We opened with "Great Balls" and got a ripple of applause - that was as good as it got!  We had some visibility problems seeing LED's etc so switching echo was problematic - but no one out there seemed to care.  Also the dry atmosphere was making me miss undershoot frets as I slid up the neck.  I was sufficiently frustrated that I started to make errors on words and arrangements.  After "American Trilogy" we got a little applause so we gave it one more big heave  with "Born to be Wild"  which was a very wild arrangement indeed - not many of the musos present would have been impressed I fear.  We signed off rather weakly with "Johnny B Goode" - I didn't even give time for Chris to outroduce me!   Pack up was slow and steady as a young solo artiste started on the plot to our right.  We finally got away at 5ish;  by the time we got home we had about an hour for a sandwich and relax before setting off to our local pub The Moreton Hall for our evening performance!  I was a bit unhappy about our performance in the afternoon and I hoped the evening would go better!