Sadly no pics of the band - but here we are enjoying the seaside prior to the gig!
We decided to do this gig in two cars.
Chris the bass would squeeze Chris the drum's kit into his and I would
take one of Chris's Ashdown cabinets. It
was forecast hot and sunny so we decided to make an afternoon of it at the
seaside as well. The two Chris's headed
off at 2pm and Jacqui and I set off about 3:15.
We had a good run to Kings Lynn then ran into very slow traffic for the
last few miles up to the Hardwicke roundabout and on the A149 skirting round
the town. But once on the Queen
Elizabeth Way we had a smooth run past Sandringham and all the way to
Hunstanton. Chris had texted to say
'park in the town' and meet in a pub so we did and after a cool lager in the
'Golden Lion' we eventually met up with them in the 'Wash and Tope' near the gig.
We had a beer and a half there so we were fairly relaxed as we arrived
in the gig bar at 6pm expecting to load in.
The manager said they were too busy with meals so could we come back in
an hour. We had a walk down the front
before we came back to load in at 7:40pm.
Even then it was a bit busy in the playing area, but the manager arranged to clear a table and
we set about getting the gear in and setting up. Chris the bass was pleased with the house
lights - so no band lights needed. It is
a biggish room with a big conservatory extension as well, so I set each Bose up from 25% to 45% power
to give me a bit more headroom on the mixer master volume. I was pleased there
was no significant increase in hiss and reckon I'll do this more often in
future. I was getting quite hot from the
exertion of the load in and setting up quickly and got Jacqui to get me a pint
of water - it didn't touch the sides! The
place was quite full so we would not be able to do a sound check, I just checked mic levels close to feedback and
then pulled the mixer down a small notch to keep below feedback. I thought all would be OK. Then I looked up and saw old mate Nigel and
his missus Jen had arrived in support.
We had a pleasant few minutes meeting and greeting before we went to get
changed (white tees and black waistcoats) in the gents for a 9pm start.
We started with "FBI".
I didn't feel too fluid with this on the night, but there were no serious mistakes and we got
a healthy round of applause. As I
acknowledged that and introduced "Heartbeat" I was a little shocked at
how much the volume on the PA seemed to have crept up - I hadn't done
anything? Still "Heartbeat"
went well enough. But the real shock
came in the next number, "Smiling", when I went for the harmoniser - 'wow
it was loud!' I managed to reduce it a
bit before the rock n roll section but I was distracted throughout that
wondering what had made the harmoniser so hot.
On the positive side I think we got the tempo of "Rock Around the
Clock and Blue Suede Shoes" about right.
I had intended to do "Rip It Up" next but I could sense the
audience were paying attention to the historical narrative so we did "Ring
of Fire" with a reference to curry houses instead. I was able to bring the PA down a little
while we were doing this - Chris the drum's mic didn't seem so hot and it was a
bit tricky to work on the mix and play the song, but we got through OK. I decided to do our little Beatles sequence
next and I was pleased to hear the rhythm was right on "8 Days a
Week" but I wasn't so sure when we ran into "Can't Buy Me Love",
so I kept that short. We tried a bit of sing-a-long with
"Daydream Believer", I think
there was a bit of sing a long but the band was relatively loud and I noticed
touches of hi pitched feedback. At the
end I took the PA volume down another notch, but the harmoniser was still way
too strong - I knocked it down even more for "Delilah". Chris got off to a strange start vocally but
picked up and we definitely had strong sing-a-long in this one! As we finished I couldn't help but look out
the window at a wonderful red sky -
however, the forecast was storms!
Perfect cue for "Bad Moon Rising". We were still going down well with a
relatively full house of our kind of audience as I took us into
"Summertime Blues". Chris the
drum still has some odd timings with the stops on this one: but I take the view it will get ironed out if
we play it a lot! We didn't see any
dancing as such, but I could see people
getting agitated in their chairs - maybe that's it round here? (Actually, Jacqui said later we had a good
groove going and would have danced if anyone else was - but it was a hot
night, much better for drinking than
dancing!). Next up was Chris with
"Proud Mary" and that seemed to go well - I even detected bits of sing-a-long
from the folks on my left. We were
winding down the finish of this set now.
I called for a song that was 'right up to date' for us -
"Hot Love". Chris the
bass got us going at the right tempo and,
by and large, we were getting it right (I messed some of the words up
but hey ho at least I knew I did!) up to the first set of 'la la la laas' I knew there was something I had to do but
couldn't bring it to mind, so I chose to
do the guitar break again whilst I got my head together, The boys followed just fine and then I
remembered it and next time around we got it right - 'phew'. Time to finish with "Wonder of
You". All went well enough, I had a bit of finger trouble getting the
strings up to volume for the big ending and I went to the low pitch vocal
finish to be safe; but it got a good
audience response and we could take a break.
Caught up with Nigel and Jen in the break, but still stuck to water. Nige said it was a full sound for a 3 piece
and he was impressed by my personal work rate. I explained that the others were
starting to contribute vocally and with banter but it was early days. Chris the bass had to show off his compressor
to Nigel! Nige said Chris had a good
bass sound - might need to come up a tad in the mix. Useful input from a trustworthy source!
We got back on for the second set which was basically our normal 3rd set
with some added numbers missed out earlier.
Opened with "Great Balls" as usual. I skipped "Dance the Night Away"
and counted Chris the drum in with a McCartneyesque 1,2,3,4 for the start of
"Saw Her Standin There". Chris
the drum looked a bit hot and bothered at then end and he confessed he hadn't
had time to get the words up and sang it from memory. 'Brill - way to go!' I said as I also urged
him to get on with the drum beat for "Pretty Woman" Then it was through the usual sing-a-along pairing:
"Saturday Night, Sweet Caroline"; I later discovered Chris was
playing an F# rather than an F in the run down on the latter - another fault fixed
for the future! As we came to a halt, Chris
pointed out we were getting through the set quickly, so I called for the little Searchers medley
next. I was still not happy with the harmoniser sound on this but we soldiered
on to some applause. Next was
"American Trilogy" which apart
from an added bar at the end of the flute solo went as well as it could and we
got a really good response to it. We
seemed to be back on track timing wise so I continued with "Hey Baby, Hi Ho, All Right Now" where we finally
saw some dance action! Continued with
"Hippy Hippy Shake, Honkey Tonk" before embarking on
"Caroline" which brought up a
couple more dancers. "Mustang
Sally" was the natural follow up with my 'all the ladies sing' quip to
bring in Chris the bass on chorus vocal; and then we were ready to call last
number with "Johnny B Goode".
This went pretty well. Chris the
bass was a little bit late on my outroduction,
but we compensated by holding the E while he finished the announcement
and then I went for the guitar solo - this actually built a bit of tension and
worked so well I think I will ask him to do it like this every time! There were a few shouts for more so it was
natural to do "Born to be Wild" as the encore. We did manage to do it a little more
disciplined than of late, but it still
has some weird tempo changes courtesy of Chris the drum who must have listened
to some freak out version in the past?!?
We left them shouting for more and took a few minutes before pack
up. After a well earned swag of
water, we said our goodbyes to Nige and
Jen and set to pack up. I told Chris the drum that Jen was a top drum roadette
if needed help packing up. Chris was
exceptionally sweaty and when Jen gave him a goodbye hug I joked "Bring
back memories?" - she laughed!
Well I have to say it was great to have old mate and staunch blogateer Nige see the band and I was so pleased we had a relatively good night for that. Pack up went quick as Chris didn't have any lights to deal with! I set off first and we had a very smooth run home in balmy conditions with none of the forecast thunder storms. Chris caught up in the final few miles and I saw him peel off to Chris the drums house to drop drums off. We got in about 1:30am and, apart from being a bit tired next day, generally felt good about the gig.
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