I had returned from Malta in a healthier mind state and I was determined to try and make the current band line up work. So I teed up a meeting with Paul to try and iron out the song issues before the scheduled band practice on the Thursday before the gig. The meet with Paul went OK and we worked for about 3 hours visiting every song on his set list, confirming the key where necessary and testing harmonies. Some of the high harmony lines I would have done in my younger days were too much of a stretch at the mo' and given that we only had two voices to play with I chose to sing the close harmony under for some songs e.g. "Little Bit More" . In terms of new band material we worked up the Wet Wet Wet version of "Love is All Around" as a banker ballad for the last set. Although I wasn't keen on it, Paul had confirmed he would be using his own PA and a Bose Compact for monitoring at the gig and I would continue to use the band PA as normal - but we agreed to provide a feed from my Stagescape mixer and take a feed from his so we were all interconnected. I was well aware of the risks of over complexity but reckoned on keeping the interconnections at low levels to avoid feedback. The other problem would be remembering all the good work we had put in on the songs, but I hoped the practice scheduled for the Thursday would solidify most of it.
The practice went quite well musically and our try outs of the harmonies worked very well - so well that I was only using the harmoniser on couple of songs e.g. "Happy Together". Unfortunately, the practice didn't go well personality wise with Paul seemingly using the session to score points against me for trying to organise things (I discounted paranoia in this assessment). At the end I had very mixed feelings about whether I wanted to continue in the band with him and these feelings intensified as the gig approached.
Come the day Jacqui offered to come to see the band. She was intrigued as to what was bothering me, and the other band wives Bridget and Sharon were going so she wouldn't be on her own. Sleeping on it I had decided it was too risky to interconnect PA's - I would set our PA up as normal and leave Paul to do his own thing with his own PA. I followed Chris in convoy to the gig and we arrived at 6 pm to find parking spaces outside the club and Paul already there and loaded in. We got our gear in and set up on the commodious (by most club standards) stage. Paul set his PA up on the floor in front of the stage and was soon busy testing it out. It did sound good and the fold back from the Bose compact angled into the band from my left was perfect - very clear and no hint of feedback. I got our PA going and it sounded equally good in my opinion. The hall itself has a slight pleasant reverb but no awkward low end resonances = good for the onstage band sound. There is a lowish ceiling beam dividing the band from the audience that I thought might cause some trouble, but all it did was cut down the volume a bit on the way to the audience - not a bad thing. We had a run through a few numbers, "Bye Bye Love - Hound Dog - Searchers" and it all sounded fine and Paul was relatively well behaved. I ran the guys through a more professional Paul intro where Ian starts the Mystery Train riff going, I announce him then same for Chris and myself then we all play the riff to a big stop - 'and its Pa--ul Ke--nt on vocals'! Satisfied with that we took to the bar. As I re-joined the women I noticed Paul was getting a bit of an interrogation from the ladies on his commitment. After a beer we got changed and Chris gathered us up for a photo shoot on stage. I suspected this would be a just an interim one no matter how well we processed it but we did our best.
Come 8:45 we took to the stage and opened up with the usual "FBI - Heartbeat". The audience is a long way from the band but it seemed to go down well. The on stage sound was fine. Having not played for a few weeks and dealing with Paul's stuff for the last 10 days, I found I was out of practice on guitar and struggling to remember song words for numbers I have done for years. Also I couldn't quite see the set list on the floor and called the next few songs out of sequence (and even missed one out) so it was after "Act Naturally" I asked Ian to start the train riff to bring Paul on. Actually that went OK. It would have been more professional if Paul had come up when announced rather than at the beginning of the riff - but 'hey ho' he started "Hound Dog" well and did a good job of posing and mingling with the audience, so it was a good first outing. The solo's went well - I have to watch Paul to see when he's going to call it: it seems different every time! He does do the Jordinaires 'aaahs' under the solos which is good, but the ending remains uncertain. I had run them through an ending similar to the record but we need an indication of this is the last verse from Paul to fix that. He got a good reception and we carried on with "Blue Suede Shoes (still a bit fast) and Bye Bye Love" both going down well with an audience of about 40. I thought we did a good version of the Everly's song. I had shifted the key to A as per record and Paul's and my voice (doing the high line) blended well. It was played at an easy pace and we had a few ladies dancing by this point. Next I announced the Searchers medley. I had shifted the keys in this to be all in A to suit Paul on lead lines. We got underway with "Sugar and Spice" and it went OK, but I sensed Paul hadn't done his homework on words. I missed the drama of the key change to F as we transitioned into "Needles and Pins" and Paul still seemed uncertain on words and arrangement. The change to "Walk in the Room" brought us back to more familiar territory and we did a tight finish. Paul seems to expect me to do all the announcements which looks a bit odd out front, best spin is initial nerves and he will interact better as we go. Next up was "Happy Together" so I did our usual link into it and we started the riff. A nice relaxed pace brought several dancers up and we played a very creditable cover of this with added harmoniser and strings filling it out in the choruses - it went down really well. There was a bit of dithering to establish how much time we had left before we got underway with the next song "Can't Buy Me Love"; and Paul was behaving unprofessionally by barracking me rather than using the opportunity to engage the audience. This slowed down decision making and made the delay worse. Not that the ladies dancing were that bothered. So after a 40 second delay we got going and played it well. I still need to work on the solo which remains somewhat improvised but all in all a good pace and a song these audiences relate to. Next was "All Shook Up". Paul had insisted we liven this up and play it faster and, as I predicted, it was too fast for this crowd and the dancers dropped away. We redeemed ourselves with a good finish on "Wonder of You" which he sang well and it had the big arrangement with strings and harmonies. Overall a good first set despite the diva act on vocals.
We started set 2 with "Apache". Ian does a good job on this and it got a good response. We progressed on with me singing familiar material "Tambourine Man, Move It, Summertime Blues and Sweet Caroline". We had quite a few dancing and singing by the end of "Sweet Caroline" and I brought Paul on quickly to do "Daydream Believer". He sang it well and we gave "Delilah" a go in Tom's key Gm. For a first time outing I couldn't grumble - it went well but maybe the audience would find it easier to sing along in Em? The rest of the set was fairly familiar. When it was time to do a couple of ballads Paul did a good vocal on "A Little Bit More" which compensated for a messed up vocal on the bridge in "Rainin in My Heart" preceding it. After a few more dancey numbers we finished with "Mony Mony" - somewhat ragged in my opinion.
I started the 3rd set with a familiar run of numbers. I was still suffering from lack of practice and found singing and playing some of these hard going. Paul was due to come on to "Saw Her Standing There". We got the riff going and I looked in vain for him. He had missed his cue and had to be told to get off the phone and get going. The next few numbers were tortuous for me. We still had attitude problems, but now he was bending down to fiddle with his vocal processor and adding what sounded like a harmoniser not receiving any key information. Fortunately it wasn't too noticeable out front and we played on to a ragged end by our standards. To be fair "Love is All Around" was an exception in this closing sequence - he sang it well and kept off the FX box.
We packed up without saying much. Paul was first to be ready to go and he made a point of saying goodbye to me with what I took to be sarcastic comment about my being the leader. Strangely, the management were happy with the band and confirmed the re-booking in July. As I drove home I continued to have very mixed feelings: alternating between wanting to resign or work at taming Paul. Jacqui urged me not to do anything hasty saying that the band had sounded good and the lack of slickness wasn't that noticeable out front. Next day we got the unsurprising news Paul had resigned. The mood between the three of us was now at a low ebb for different reasons and I half hoped it might result in a band split. But come Tuesday Ian had found a potential singer from his contacts who he assured us wouldn't be a diva. So we fell in line with that. We have to play the next weekend as a trio which I will find demanding, but hopefully we can get sorted after that.
The practice went quite well musically and our try outs of the harmonies worked very well - so well that I was only using the harmoniser on couple of songs e.g. "Happy Together". Unfortunately, the practice didn't go well personality wise with Paul seemingly using the session to score points against me for trying to organise things (I discounted paranoia in this assessment). At the end I had very mixed feelings about whether I wanted to continue in the band with him and these feelings intensified as the gig approached.
Come the day Jacqui offered to come to see the band. She was intrigued as to what was bothering me, and the other band wives Bridget and Sharon were going so she wouldn't be on her own. Sleeping on it I had decided it was too risky to interconnect PA's - I would set our PA up as normal and leave Paul to do his own thing with his own PA. I followed Chris in convoy to the gig and we arrived at 6 pm to find parking spaces outside the club and Paul already there and loaded in. We got our gear in and set up on the commodious (by most club standards) stage. Paul set his PA up on the floor in front of the stage and was soon busy testing it out. It did sound good and the fold back from the Bose compact angled into the band from my left was perfect - very clear and no hint of feedback. I got our PA going and it sounded equally good in my opinion. The hall itself has a slight pleasant reverb but no awkward low end resonances = good for the onstage band sound. There is a lowish ceiling beam dividing the band from the audience that I thought might cause some trouble, but all it did was cut down the volume a bit on the way to the audience - not a bad thing. We had a run through a few numbers, "Bye Bye Love - Hound Dog - Searchers" and it all sounded fine and Paul was relatively well behaved. I ran the guys through a more professional Paul intro where Ian starts the Mystery Train riff going, I announce him then same for Chris and myself then we all play the riff to a big stop - 'and its Pa--ul Ke--nt on vocals'! Satisfied with that we took to the bar. As I re-joined the women I noticed Paul was getting a bit of an interrogation from the ladies on his commitment. After a beer we got changed and Chris gathered us up for a photo shoot on stage. I suspected this would be a just an interim one no matter how well we processed it but we did our best.
Come 8:45 we took to the stage and opened up with the usual "FBI - Heartbeat". The audience is a long way from the band but it seemed to go down well. The on stage sound was fine. Having not played for a few weeks and dealing with Paul's stuff for the last 10 days, I found I was out of practice on guitar and struggling to remember song words for numbers I have done for years. Also I couldn't quite see the set list on the floor and called the next few songs out of sequence (and even missed one out) so it was after "Act Naturally" I asked Ian to start the train riff to bring Paul on. Actually that went OK. It would have been more professional if Paul had come up when announced rather than at the beginning of the riff - but 'hey ho' he started "Hound Dog" well and did a good job of posing and mingling with the audience, so it was a good first outing. The solo's went well - I have to watch Paul to see when he's going to call it: it seems different every time! He does do the Jordinaires 'aaahs' under the solos which is good, but the ending remains uncertain. I had run them through an ending similar to the record but we need an indication of this is the last verse from Paul to fix that. He got a good reception and we carried on with "Blue Suede Shoes (still a bit fast) and Bye Bye Love" both going down well with an audience of about 40. I thought we did a good version of the Everly's song. I had shifted the key to A as per record and Paul's and my voice (doing the high line) blended well. It was played at an easy pace and we had a few ladies dancing by this point. Next I announced the Searchers medley. I had shifted the keys in this to be all in A to suit Paul on lead lines. We got underway with "Sugar and Spice" and it went OK, but I sensed Paul hadn't done his homework on words. I missed the drama of the key change to F as we transitioned into "Needles and Pins" and Paul still seemed uncertain on words and arrangement. The change to "Walk in the Room" brought us back to more familiar territory and we did a tight finish. Paul seems to expect me to do all the announcements which looks a bit odd out front, best spin is initial nerves and he will interact better as we go. Next up was "Happy Together" so I did our usual link into it and we started the riff. A nice relaxed pace brought several dancers up and we played a very creditable cover of this with added harmoniser and strings filling it out in the choruses - it went down really well. There was a bit of dithering to establish how much time we had left before we got underway with the next song "Can't Buy Me Love"; and Paul was behaving unprofessionally by barracking me rather than using the opportunity to engage the audience. This slowed down decision making and made the delay worse. Not that the ladies dancing were that bothered. So after a 40 second delay we got going and played it well. I still need to work on the solo which remains somewhat improvised but all in all a good pace and a song these audiences relate to. Next was "All Shook Up". Paul had insisted we liven this up and play it faster and, as I predicted, it was too fast for this crowd and the dancers dropped away. We redeemed ourselves with a good finish on "Wonder of You" which he sang well and it had the big arrangement with strings and harmonies. Overall a good first set despite the diva act on vocals.
I started the 3rd set with a familiar run of numbers. I was still suffering from lack of practice and found singing and playing some of these hard going. Paul was due to come on to "Saw Her Standing There". We got the riff going and I looked in vain for him. He had missed his cue and had to be told to get off the phone and get going. The next few numbers were tortuous for me. We still had attitude problems, but now he was bending down to fiddle with his vocal processor and adding what sounded like a harmoniser not receiving any key information. Fortunately it wasn't too noticeable out front and we played on to a ragged end by our standards. To be fair "Love is All Around" was an exception in this closing sequence - he sang it well and kept off the FX box.
We packed up without saying much. Paul was first to be ready to go and he made a point of saying goodbye to me with what I took to be sarcastic comment about my being the leader. Strangely, the management were happy with the band and confirmed the re-booking in July. As I drove home I continued to have very mixed feelings: alternating between wanting to resign or work at taming Paul. Jacqui urged me not to do anything hasty saying that the band had sounded good and the lack of slickness wasn't that noticeable out front. Next day we got the unsurprising news Paul had resigned. The mood between the three of us was now at a low ebb for different reasons and I half hoped it might result in a band split. But come Tuesday Ian had found a potential singer from his contacts who he assured us wouldn't be a diva. So we fell in line with that. We have to play the next weekend as a trio which I will find demanding, but hopefully we can get sorted after that.
No comments:
Post a Comment