This gig was a bit of a paid audition and was booked before Cambridge United's fantastic cup run against Man United earning them over a million pounds. I followed Chris the bass out to the gig on a cool but dry evening and when we arrived he joked: 'see those stadium lights - they rang up and that's where we are playing tonight!' I was taken in for a few seconds before I quipped back: 'supporting Shirley Bassey I suppose?' We entered the club, it was quite full despite the team's loss to Wycombe in the afternoon. Quite a big concert room with a sizeable stage in the corner. They soon opened the fire door so we could get the gear on to the stage comfortably. We started load in and had most of our gear in before Chris and Trudy arrived. Set up went OK. Most of my gear was a little damp from having been stored in the cold, so I took my time to unplug and replug jacks and XLR's to ensure contacts were sound. The only power I could find was a trailing lead capable of running about 10 amps so I suggested to Chris that he forget the lights. But he found a socket the other side of the fire door and routed an extension over the top to the stage. He set up the Bose on his side fairly well forward and to the outside of the bass stack. It was angled left into the main body of the hall which was pretty well what I would have gone for. On my side I took the trouble to set the mixer up on the left of my Bose so it also had a good run of sight into the body of the hall over to my right (facing it). I wanted to avoid setting them up too aimed to the middle because there was a low beam about 30 foot from the stage which could have bounced back badly. Too my relief, it all powered up OK and we had pretty good headroom before feedback. There was a hum on the guitar which I couldn't get rid of and will need further investigation. It seems to be from the guitar 'cos volume down or hand on the bridge seems to clear it. I decided to live with it. So we were all set. Chris the bass and I swapped reminiscences about playing this gig in the mid 70's. I had come down from Lincoln with 5 piece to do it and he had done it with a young country band.
We met up with Paul the concert sec who explained timings, lighting etc and after a quick beer, I whiled away some of the time setting up a Go-Pro camera to video some of the show. This has a very wide angled lens and is reputed to be capable of recording live sound well. Then Paul switched on the hall lighting and it was great: a starry backscene, well lit stage and atmospheric lighting in the hall.
We had a dressing room for a change and it was nice and warm! We got into the black and whites. Chris the drum had forgotten his hat but Chris and I decided to wear ours. I'd say the concert room was about half full as we started. We took to the stage at 8:30 the concert sec announced us and off we went with "FBI". What a good on-stage sound! We played this note perfect and finished to some applause. I did my quip about their million pound windfall and us expecting to be supporting Shirley Bassey and then we moved onto "Heartbeat". The vocals sounded good to me and again we played it at a good pace and with no mistakes to earn another polite round of applause. Actually the audience were quite a way away from us so you would only expect to hear it lightly anyway. Next up was "Smiling" which I thought we did well. I made a couple of fluffs on guitar but nothing too noticeable and again it was well received.
As we moved onto rock and roll some jivers came up to dance. We carried on through the set playing well I thought and we were rewarded with bits of dancing, applause etc. Strangely, at the 40 minute point, the concert sec came on his mic as we finished "All Shook Up" to announce the end of the set. Did he want to be part of the show?
During the break we met up with another Paul who had come to see us specially. He is a muso acquaintance of Chris the Bass and I showed him round our PA. He was very much up to speed with technology and quite impressed with the set up. The hall had filled a bit more by start time.
We set off into a standard 2nd set with "Apache and Do You Wanna Dance" I was a bit rusty on both of these but we got quite a few up and dancing to the latter. And that was the pattern for the rest of the night really. They liked the 70's dancier stuff like "Hot Love" and were less into the slowies ad sing-a-longs. I thought we played pretty well and at a good pace and we had good continuity. Hard to read really. Later on: soft rock like "All Right Now didn't fare that well with the dancers, but towards the end the slowies filled the floor. We were just gearing ourselves up for the run down to the end when the concert sec came on the mic and announced the last number. So we did "Johnny B Goode". Then he announced a couple of encores - I chose to do "Hippy Shakes and Wonderful Tonight" both of which filled the floor quite well. The concert sec then carried on with a 80's themed disco session til after midnight.
As we came off stage a few well wishers came up to say hello and how much they had enjoyed it so we were feeling good about the gig as we packed up. Chris found time to sound out Paul the Concert Sec about another booking we had pencilled in for the club in June: but he wasn't that enthusiastic saying he couldn't remember and would need to check his books. Anyway we all set off home feeling fine and next afternoon we had the news that he wasn't taking up the option on the re-booking? When pushed he told Chris that the tempo didn't suit the club and he thought the vocals needed more work.
This prompted a flurry of texts between the band as we entered a crisis of confidence. As it happened we had booked a practice try out session with a female singer in the week to come that I thought might improve our versatility. So later in the afternoon we settled on that as the way forward for a while. Thinking about the concert sec's criticism I think we are about 15 years away from him in era so that probably takes care of the tempo issue. We may have a had the occasional vocal problem on the night, but the video showed an acceptable performance overall I thought. Also the other Paul the musu reported back to Chris the bass that the band sounded very good instrumentally and vocally to him. So I decided to put the vocal issue down to a bit of rustiness and try to work harder at it. Then, late on the Sunday we had a text from Chris the drum to say he was resigning: citing more time needed with the family!
By the next day Chris the bass had lined up deps for the immediate gigs and we agreed to consider one of these as replacement. So we had now reached another settlement around: 'carry on and keep calm'. The female singer is an acquaintance of Chris the drum so we don't know if she will turn up for a try out on Wednesday as agreed? A lot of the performance load is on my shoulders so I'm thinking that we will take the opportunity of this hiatus to augment the band with another member. Watch this space blogateers!
We met up with Paul the concert sec who explained timings, lighting etc and after a quick beer, I whiled away some of the time setting up a Go-Pro camera to video some of the show. This has a very wide angled lens and is reputed to be capable of recording live sound well. Then Paul switched on the hall lighting and it was great: a starry backscene, well lit stage and atmospheric lighting in the hall.
We had a dressing room for a change and it was nice and warm! We got into the black and whites. Chris the drum had forgotten his hat but Chris and I decided to wear ours. I'd say the concert room was about half full as we started. We took to the stage at 8:30 the concert sec announced us and off we went with "FBI". What a good on-stage sound! We played this note perfect and finished to some applause. I did my quip about their million pound windfall and us expecting to be supporting Shirley Bassey and then we moved onto "Heartbeat". The vocals sounded good to me and again we played it at a good pace and with no mistakes to earn another polite round of applause. Actually the audience were quite a way away from us so you would only expect to hear it lightly anyway. Next up was "Smiling" which I thought we did well. I made a couple of fluffs on guitar but nothing too noticeable and again it was well received.
As we moved onto rock and roll some jivers came up to dance. We carried on through the set playing well I thought and we were rewarded with bits of dancing, applause etc. Strangely, at the 40 minute point, the concert sec came on his mic as we finished "All Shook Up" to announce the end of the set. Did he want to be part of the show?
During the break we met up with another Paul who had come to see us specially. He is a muso acquaintance of Chris the Bass and I showed him round our PA. He was very much up to speed with technology and quite impressed with the set up. The hall had filled a bit more by start time.
We set off into a standard 2nd set with "Apache and Do You Wanna Dance" I was a bit rusty on both of these but we got quite a few up and dancing to the latter. And that was the pattern for the rest of the night really. They liked the 70's dancier stuff like "Hot Love" and were less into the slowies ad sing-a-longs. I thought we played pretty well and at a good pace and we had good continuity. Hard to read really. Later on: soft rock like "All Right Now didn't fare that well with the dancers, but towards the end the slowies filled the floor. We were just gearing ourselves up for the run down to the end when the concert sec came on the mic and announced the last number. So we did "Johnny B Goode". Then he announced a couple of encores - I chose to do "Hippy Shakes and Wonderful Tonight" both of which filled the floor quite well. The concert sec then carried on with a 80's themed disco session til after midnight.
As we came off stage a few well wishers came up to say hello and how much they had enjoyed it so we were feeling good about the gig as we packed up. Chris found time to sound out Paul the Concert Sec about another booking we had pencilled in for the club in June: but he wasn't that enthusiastic saying he couldn't remember and would need to check his books. Anyway we all set off home feeling fine and next afternoon we had the news that he wasn't taking up the option on the re-booking? When pushed he told Chris that the tempo didn't suit the club and he thought the vocals needed more work.
This prompted a flurry of texts between the band as we entered a crisis of confidence. As it happened we had booked a practice try out session with a female singer in the week to come that I thought might improve our versatility. So later in the afternoon we settled on that as the way forward for a while. Thinking about the concert sec's criticism I think we are about 15 years away from him in era so that probably takes care of the tempo issue. We may have a had the occasional vocal problem on the night, but the video showed an acceptable performance overall I thought. Also the other Paul the musu reported back to Chris the bass that the band sounded very good instrumentally and vocally to him. So I decided to put the vocal issue down to a bit of rustiness and try to work harder at it. Then, late on the Sunday we had a text from Chris the drum to say he was resigning: citing more time needed with the family!
By the next day Chris the bass had lined up deps for the immediate gigs and we agreed to consider one of these as replacement. So we had now reached another settlement around: 'carry on and keep calm'. The female singer is an acquaintance of Chris the drum so we don't know if she will turn up for a try out on Wednesday as agreed? A lot of the performance load is on my shoulders so I'm thinking that we will take the opportunity of this hiatus to augment the band with another member. Watch this space blogateers!
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