Ms J had returned from a visit to a chum in Lincoln but she had so much on (quilts and familywise) she decided to give a trip to Cromer a miss. Dispatched with a bag of sandwiches I set off on a cool, dry day at 5pm. It was a very smooth run to Cromer and only took an hour and a half. I was parked outside the club at 6:30pm to find Chris completing his load in. I popped in and was surprised at how the well the club had been done up since I was last there. A nice backdrop with lit up stars to the stage, proper dance floor and a generally tidy look about the place. Ian arrived from the Hotel de Paris where he and Sharon were staying for the night and soon he was setting up as well. We had loads of room to set up but I remembered this gig had some tricky resonances so I spread the Bose well out and decided to position my mic stand to the left of my Bose to give maximum sound penetration into the centre of the room. On reflection this might have been less optimal than placing the Bose on my left which would have left me performing closer to the boys in the band. As it was I was out on a limb - a bit disconnected? I powered up and this immediately revealed a few problems. First, easily fixed, I had forgotten to plug in the mixer feed to the Bose on Chris's side. But the main problem was a low resonance that seemed to emanate from the corner on Chris's side. He was using his AKG mic which does have a pronounced bass and it was this low mid range that was feeding back, not the usual hi end issues. The feedback filters deal better with the hi end so I adjusted Chris and Ian's mics to make them less boomy and more toppy. I left mine as was and then let the feedback suppressors do their work. The resulting sound had a slightly hard edge. I was happy enough with that because it would cut through. I had changed guitar strings early in the week and they had slackened somewhat - they would need a bit of an eye on tuning as the evening progressed.
Plenty of time for a beer before showtime. Sharon had arrived and kindly got the first round in. I was getting the second in and a chap at the bar said his son was a muso and had been in Hank Marvin's backing band on a recent tour. Most impressive I replied, I had seen Hank a few years ago and wondered if I might have seen his son with Hank then? Probably not it turned out. Got back to the band and, after a few more minutes, we set off to get changed into the smart black n white; and Chris and I were wearing our white hats. As we took to the stage there was some confusion as to which timepiece we were going by, Ian's watch or the club clock? In the end I put another track on the player and spent a couple of minutes checking tuning. Despite being warned by management it was a quiet night at the club, the room looked fairly busy to me.
'Ready Girls' I said and off we went with the usual FBI. It sounded fine and "Heartbeat and Smiling" following were OK. It seemed a dry sound on vocal and I was tempted to push the echo return up a little but I was busy enough so I thought I'd leave it 'till the break. Where I was standing the balance sounded different. I was hearing the guitar above the band presumably because I was further away from the rhythm section than normal. This should have been good from a quality control point of view, but the exposure increased nerves which led to a less relaxed and accurate guitar performance than when it is more hidden in the on stage mix. I tried the "Mystery - Hound Dog" routine early as a means of introducing the band and this went quite well. It naturally led us into " Alright Mama" which was nicely paced. We were getting some polite applause with the rock n roll and I'm sure the wigging up for the Beatles sequence amused some. Towards the end of the set we were in the middle of a fair version of "Tambourine Man" and I was heartened to see Nige, Jen and Martin arrive - some support for the band! I broke a strum to give a wave and we ploughed onto a timely ending. Again this number got a good reception, maybe people like the easy pace. We set off into "Halfway" and I hoped for some audience sing-a-long. I set the long echo but quickly reverted to the medium echo after hearing the slap back awkwardly timed against a slightly more upbeat tempo than I am used to. Nige and co took up seating near Sharon who was busy taking pics. As we finished I called for "Runaround Sue" and as soon as we got going we got some dancers up. It was easy to run on into "All Shook Up". Ian and I got at cross purposes on the rhythm straight away but we settled into some kind of compromise between my relaxed swing and his more on the beat style. It was going quite well so I had expected a big audience join in when I left them to sing the 'All Shook Up' halfway through but in the event it was a bit muted. Still we finished in good order and Chris indicated time for our break and, switching on the muzak, we took our leave.
It was good to meet up with Nige and gang. They said the band's sound was great, A good clear balance as soon as they came through the door and not too loud. And, to Chris's bemusement, again the comment on the well rounded bass sound being just right. Chris can't hear it stood in front of the stack! Had a little misunderstanding with the table behind us. A chap asked me to turn the music down they wanted to chat. I misunderstood thinking he was joking about turning down the band level so they could chat. But it turned out it was the muzak level that was a little intrusive. I apologised and obliged! With that sorted they could get on with their chat as could we. I showed Martin and Nige the Line 6 mixer - people are always amused to see little cartoon people rather than sliders!
We returned for set 2 with "Apache" I decided to give the walk a go. Got off to a bad start forgetting to set the shads sound on the FX pedal - I had to step back and adjust that. I only did a half walk 'cos my back was still playing up. I couldn't get very far out, but it sounded ok. My picking was still a bit nervy but we did a strong end to it and were rewarded with a big response. I took my time to introduce "Move It" getting all the settings right and making sure Ian and I were gonna do the same number! We got a good groove going and some lady dancers came up. I was still fluffing the odd note and wondered if the bad back was affecting fingering? We slipped seamlessly into "Summetime Blues" to keep the dancing going and then Sir Cliff's "Do You Wanna Dance" which brought up a few more dancers. I was getting a bit more relaxed, but my fingers still made some strange choices in the solos which normally play a standard routine. With a full dance floor, I called for "Sweet Caroline" to keep it going - a good choice and we had some sing-a-long as well as dance. As that finished I took off into "Daydream Believer". Its a necessary slow swung start but as the song progressed Ian got us into a good groove at the right pace for the dancers. Although my voice was well recovered from the previous weeks problems, I was finding it a stretch to hold the high lines and there was a bit of a rasp, but I think it was in tune. I continued the sequence for one more number with "Bad Moon Rising". I thought I could see the dancers flagging a bit as we came to the end and elected to try a slowey in the shape of "Raining In My Heart". The dancers melted away and only two couples came up for the slow dance. (I noted that Chris is still not sure of the chords in the middle 8). "Crazy Little Thing" brought some dancers up again. We did an OK version. We've only played this a few times and it is coming together but it needs a few more plays to fully gel. I thought the quick transition to "Hippy Shakes" would have kept the dancers, but it may have been a bit fast for them. As it was I got off on the wrong key vocally and had the wrong guitar settings so the start was ragged. Once underway, it went like a train. We finished it a bit looser than I prefer, but Ian is still getting familiar with this ending I think. Chris got us straight underway with "Hot Love" which I thought went well and, on this night, I decided to take us into "East Anglia Girls". We made the transition to A in good order but, not playing this for a while, I forgot the 'Florida, Hawaii --- shouts" and then the chords once we got into the verse. Doh! Somehow we got through it and the second verse was better and the dancers kept going. Chris indicated we needed one more. Again I found myself announcing "American Trilogy" rather than something easier. And again it was a mixed performance only slightly better than the previous outing. We did get some sing-a-long going and with a rousing big ending we elicited a big round of applause from a patient audience. Time for a break.
Ian asked to be excused "Flingel Bunt" (with another drummer in the room) and we opened with "Albatross" instead. Despite me having run through this in the week, it was still a nervy performance but no major goof thank goodness. Then we opened up the dance sequence running through "Dance Night Away - Great Balls - Pretty Woman - Saturday Night - Hey Baby - Hi Ho and Alright Now" without stopping to keep the dance floor busy. I intended to keep it going with my 1 2 3 4 intro to "Saw Her Standin There", but Ian must confuse it with another song 'cos he takes the pace on significantly faster than I feel it. So we lost the dancers and it was over in a matter of under 2 minutes. I called for the ballad for romantic dancers with "Wonderful Tonight" This went OK but I lost the plot on the transition to the bridge, nothing too noticeable just not concentrating! We did "Another Brick in the Wall". Again not too well on my part: although I had managed it the previous week, I couldn't get the timings on the 'Hey Teacher' and, with no dancers, I found the solo hard going so kept it short. After "Mustang Sally" I announced "Johnny B Goode" as the last number and we played our outro solos. By now the voice was shot, but it didn't matter too much at this late stage. There was one shout for more and we were teed up for it so we gave "Born to be Wild" an airing. Quite a fast and loose performance, but we all arrived at the end together!
Said my goodbyes to Nige and gang and then set about pack up. I was bent over a Bose bag when the club chairman came over. He spoke to Ian, saying it had been a nice night in a complimentary way. We had a good sound, had kept the audience and elicited some dancing - so there were some satisfied folk out there. I personally had had a poor night on guitar, but the voice had held up better. All in all we should have been in good humour, but things were strangely subdued as we packed and loaded. Chris and I were lined up outside the club to leave in convoy with me at the front to lead the way out through a short cut down St Mary's street. Sharon was quite merry as she and Ian set off for their hotel - she had had some kind of conversations with folk at the club which had her marked down as a character!
We had a really good run home taking only 90 minutes to get back at 2 am. Sore back the next day and mixed feelings about things in the band - I can't work out if the other two think I'm not up to it or if they respect the leadership I am giving. I was pleased I had a bank holiday coming up for some extra recovery time. We had agreed to meet up for a practice session later in the week with a girl singer / keyboard player to try out so I resolved to give that a good shot and see how it goes.
Sorry Blogateers - no action pics as yet!
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