Raye had booked this gig several months previously and I was able to adjust my holiday to fit. Nevertheless, Jacqui and I were still somewhat zombified after our return from the Caribbean on the Tuesday before the gig on the Sunday. Partly time adjustment but mainly the ferocious cold that seemed to envelop East Anglia on our return! I prepared the day before: my Godin gig bag had got messed up in the flood at Carl's flat so I squeezed the XTSA into an old Fender gig bag I have and loaded my Boss GP 10, some leads and a tuner in a back pack with my Checkmates shirts. We would be using the house amplification thank goodness. Anyway, come the day we drove to Cambridge, parked up at the station car park (only £1.30 on a Sunday) and got the 13:20 to Kings Cross. This was a non-stop, on time experience and we were flagging a taxi down by 14:20. I directed him to Leicester Square where I intended to have a beer and kill about 30 minutes contingency time before arriving at the venue at our scheduled 3-4pm meet up time. It was a lot warmer in London than Bury but Jacqui and I were pleased to take refuge in the Cambridge Arms on Charing Cross road about 5 minutes from the gig. I enjoyed a couple of pints before we walked up to Mannette St opposite Denmark St (tin pan alley where all the music shops are) to find the club well and truly locked. Strange I thought, checking my notes, there should have been a gear load in phase before 2pm? Then the thought struck - there must be a stage door! So we walked on a block and down an alley where a short line of some of Raye's mates were waiting to see him and they pointed out the stage door. I buzzed us in (non one asked who we were, maybe there is a camera?) and we came down some well worn stairs into the concert room where I spotted Graham and his boy Adam, They had just arrived five minutes earlier. Apparently Raye and Val were on a bus coming over from Victoria and would not be at the gig for another half an hour. At that moment the impresario, Keith Woods, came over to us and, recognising us as the Checkmates, led us to our own dressing room back stage. We dumped the gear and as we came out past the stage we could see the house band had just completed set up and was starting a sound check. I was amazed when the guitarist (Johnny) spotted me and said "Ah The Checkmates are here". Apparently he had seen us play at Lindfield in 2010! Well, he took the trouble to show me and Graham the set up. A choice of Fender guitar amps and a Trace Elliot for bass. Strangely all the back line amps were one side of the stage to leave plenty of room for keyboards, sax's etc on the other side. Although he had a nice looking Fender de-luxe 30 watt valve, I opted for his solid state Fender 65 'cos I was using my pedal for the amp sound. This worked out well because he could leave the settings for himself on the Deluxe. We took a step back to them get on with their sound check and greet Raye and John/Raz the Ted (Raye's old road manager) who had just arrived. We listened a bit to the house band and Beryl Marsden's sound check before retreating to the dressing room to get sorted. She has a fine soulful voice, and the 'in hall' sound was very good with repeater speakers and TV screens at the back delivering a good clear sound throughout this 'intimate' venue. We would be last to check at 4:30 ish 'cos we were first on. I had prepared a running order and themed our show so we all knew what we were doing and we were all fit and well and ready to go. Raye went and arranged with the lighting man to dim the stage lights in the drum routine because we would be using lit up drum sticks and Graham and I set off for our sound check. I plugged in but nothing worked. The sound guy came over and discovered a faulty house lead into to the Fender 65. Then I got going. The sound was a bit middley and had a bit too much reverb, but I was being urged by the other two to get on with it and didn't get round to adjusting the amp settings - so I decided to settle for it. Actually most of the sound colour was from my pedal and it would cut through nicely with the middley sound! The mics sounded good on stage, but Graham was well away from the back line and needed more bass in his monitor. So we set off by trying out "Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now". We were a little hesitant getting started but it had all gelled by the second verse. No harmoniser meant for an interesting counterplay between mine and Graham's voice with quite a few unison lines that are normally harmonised - strangely attractive in a vintage sort of way though. I kept edging the guitar volume down because it was so strong in my monitor but I assumed the sound guy would fix in the front of house mix. And he did because all our supporters later re-assured us it sounded really good. We realised as we finished that Raye didn't have a vocal mic - so that was fixed for the show itself and Raye's voice would add a little bit more in places. Although doors hadn't yet opened, there were quite a few fans already in the room - special invites by Keith? As we left the stage we were complimented by several of these and I even was asked for a couple of autographs on the way back to the dressing room. A group of three international fans; including Lucky from France and Sven from Norway insisted on having photo's taken with the band. We obliged but said we would do it again later when we had our stage wear on! When doors opened at five, we are delighted to meet up with daughter Claire and partner Nick and a couple of old friends of ours: Pete and Di from Farnham. We only had a few minutes because we needed to get changed ready for the 5:30pm start. We retreated to the dressing room and donning our blue shirts we just reminded each other of some of the starts.
Keith came and collected us at 5:25pm and we strode onto the stage in front of a full house, plugged in and opened up with "Eyes". All went very well and we got a great round of applause. As I looked round there were quite a few videoing the performance providing us with a view of a sea of outstretched arms with phones in hands. I counted us straight into "Slowboat" and off we went - again it was well paced and note perfect and very well received. We carried quickly on with the third Checkmates top ten hit "Them Their Eyes". A couple of fluffed chords and odd remembrances of the backing vocals but a well paced rendition nevertheless. As the applause died down Graham did our planned announcement providing a bit of background on the Checkmates and Rayes early 60's band lineage, concluding with the morphing of the Checkmates in 1962 into the Ex-Checkers to back Jimmy Justice. Then it was over to me to sing "Smiling" as a tribute. Despite my failing to hit the solo switch on my Boss GP-10 for the solo, it went very well. I thought I sang it well, Graham joined in on some harmonies and we finished to a great round of applause. Then Graham announced the drum routine as per his usual style and we were soon off into "Let There Be Drums". A familiar routine that we would adapt as we went to fit on the stage. It was business as usual up to the point I would move the large tom. This was miked up but I had pre-planned exactly where it was going for us to work round but not disturb the mic. Raye had issued us with sticks that light up and as the house lights dimmed we looked eerie with the sticks flashing away. We came out of the drum section OK but Graham and I got a little at cross purposes on the run up to the resumption of the verse; nothing the crowd would notice though. But I held my cool and restarted the run up as though it was part of the act and we ran through to the end smoothly to a fantastic reception. As we re-organised the drums, Graham announced our dedication to the 2 i's Coffee Bar, a favourite hang out of Raye's where much of early British Rock n Roll started. We chose to play "Brand New Cadillac by Vince Taylor (and covered by the Clash in the 80s). I had set up my slap back echo rock n roll sound and we got off to a good start at the right tempo. In fact, we performed this the best we ever have done - I had recently adjusted the solo to be closer to the record and that worked really well. Once again we got a great reception for it. Graham then announced our finishing sequence beginning with "Lucky Old Sun". This started OK but I did have a bit of trouble getting the backing vocals as I would like without the harmoniser, so I kept them down in the mix. Also the middley guitar sound didn't help the arpeggios because the g string was so pronounced and I had to try and play softer on that one. Graham elected to do a bit of an outro announcement in the middle and it took me a few bars to cotton on to the fact he was doing this over the verse chords (in effect adding an extra verse where I had wrongly assumed the next bridge would be). All in all I felt I was struggling with this song all the way through - but again I think nothing the audience would notice. We segued smoothly into "Early in the Morning" with Raye joining us out front and carried it through to its usual speeding up ending and tight, syncopated finish. As we finished to a fantastic reception we tried to leave the stage in good order, but were generally mobbed by well wishers and autograph collectors. One fan asked why we hadn't done: "Never Know What You're Missing"? I said 'maybe next time!' hoping we would get to do this gig again sometime. As I left the stage I provided our names to a music journalist who would be writing up the gig.
We headed back toward the dressing room and did some photo shoots with Lucky etc on the way and eventually we found our way back to family and friends who all said it was fantastic. Finally we got changed and, after an hour or so watching the other bands, Jacqui and I agreed to take Claire and Nick for a meal. Graham had had to go anyway because he was due at a conference in Copenhagen the next day; so we said our goodbyes and ventured out into Soho. Nick led us to a Byron's restaurant where we had some posh burgers - most enjoyable. After, we hailed a cab on Oxford St and gave Nick and Claire a lift with us back to Kings Cross. Where we only had a short wait before the next fast train to Cambridge. This ran to time and we were soon picking up the car and on our way home on a very cold night. Pleased to have some cocoa and get to bed basking in the glow of what was probably the best Checkmates gig I've done.
No comments:
Post a Comment