When was
the last gig? It seems ages, but it's not
really. I'm getting sick of saying this, but we were
all looking forward to playing again. The Robin
being the first gig after a break is a double edged
sword. On the one hand, it's one of our
favourite venues with a fantastic audience and a very
high probability of us going down very well. On
the other hand, it is stressful because we want to do
really well, play our hearts out for the crowd and be
slick and as good as we can be. We would
probably have liked to have done a gig the night
before....just to get into the swing of things.
Roy has traveled separately, but we arrive at the
venue within 5 minutes of each other. Ade and
Dave have nearly finished setting up and have this
time installed our monitor desk, so we should be
fine. Last time we played here, we had an awful
on stage sound so we were very keen to rectify this
tonight.
The fuse blew on my AC30 when the standby was switched
on. After replacing the fuse, it blew again! Oh
shit..the back had to come off the amp and some
prodding about needed to be done. Turns out the
rectifier valve was buggered and the spare I had in
the car also turned out to have lost it's
vacuum. Fortunately, The Robin had a spare amp
in the back which Eddie used and I nicked the amp he
normally uses.
We drastically lowered our on-stage volume at the
sound check and this seemed to work brilliantly.
If only we could keep it like this for the gig and not
let the adrenaline take hold we would be fine.
After some great shepherds pie, we settled down in the
dressing room to do an interview with Ashleigh for her
website.
Once on
stage, we proved that we could do it! the sound
was pretty much the same as it had been during the
sound check. We are playing very relaxed and not
getting over excited about the enthusiastic reception
from the great Robin crowd. It's great.....this
is by far the best sound we have had here and what's
more, we are nowhere near as sweaty as usual.....and
it's August!
Everything was going swimmingly until my solo spot in
the second half. I don't like to have the
acoustic guitar up too loud in the monitor, but as the
crowd started singing along with Here Comes The Sun,
it became completely inaudible. I panicked and
turned to Dave to ask him to turn me up...but it was
too late! I had started to think about what I
was playing....a very dangerous thing for me to
do. I made a complete porridge of the song at
one point and was hanging on by my fingernails.
I did manage to get things together for the middle 8
and the last verse, but it was touch and go. The
rest of the band know what I'm like, it's an atrocious
affliction to have to think about every note you
play. Sorry chaps.
A young lad at the front was clearly reading the set
lists taped to the front of house speakers and was
shouting out the next song at the end of the
last. But we fixed him!... and
changed the set to include I've Got A Feeling, which
has been absent from our repertoire for 9 months.
Good to be back.
Video uploaded to YouTube
by Ash.
Saturday
13th August 05
Princess
Theatre, Hunstanton.
A glamorous
start to the day as I spend half an hour dismantling
one of the spare AC30's. The van has traveled on
to Hunstanton after the Robin show and there is no way
a Vox is going to fit in the car with us, so I decided
to take the necessary valve out of the spare.
Hello! what's this? The amp is completely
different to the ones in the back of the van and so
there is no similar valve to the one we need for the
show tonight. Bugger! Several phone calls
to the usual suppliers draw a blank, so does the
possibility of hiring an amp in Norfolk. Sod
it...we will get by with putting a guitar straight
through the PA.
It's very, very wet. The journey to the Fens is
more horrendous than usual. The traffic on the
M6 is crawling most of the way, very unlike a
Saturday. In spite of this we kept our spirits
up with conversations about ladyboys and the density
of XXXX XXXXXXX. XXXXXXXXXX XX
X XX XXXXXXX XX X XXXXX
XX XX X X. (sentences have been removed
after an inquest regarding relevance, good taste and
the necessity to publish musings on band members
bollocks)
It was a small miracle, that saw us arrive in
Hunstanton in plenty of time to hit the local fish
& chip emporium.
Clare, Jean and Barbara, had traveled over to the Wash
intending to kill two birds with one stone; a day on
the beach and a Cavern Beatles concert. The
first of these would not have been possible without
professional oil skins and sow westers, the second
was possible due to having to put Eddie's guitar
through the PA! Less than satisfactory, but Ade
made the best of it.
Everything was going very well for the first two songs
of the show. Derek had noticed that Eddie was
perspiring profusely and asked the audience if
"Anybody wants to blow
John...... erm....I'm
sorry does anybody want to blow ON
John" The audience were in hysterics
and I was considering offering Derek a shovel so he
could dig himself even deeper into the hole he was
gouging for himself. It was, as is often the
case, Derek being rather clumsy with his choice of
words. But that was it.... he'd
gone....completely lost the plot and was giggling too
much to introduce the song. I stepped up while
he tried desperately to compose himself. It was
rather unfortunate that the next song was "A
Taste of Honey".... and it opened up with a
two and a half part harmony instead of the usual
three. All the way through, poor Derek
spluttered the lyric while trying to imagine really
sad and poignant moments of his life. I think it
took about another three songs before his eye returned
to the ball.
Towards the end of the first half, I introduced
the Little Richard song "Long Tall Sally"
and gently strummed a G chord. Derek stepped up
to deliver the first line:
"You tell lie's thinking I can't see....You can't
cry cos...."
"Oi......what yer doing??"
Proving the remarkable similarity between the two
songs, Derek had begun to deliver a rendition of I'm
Down. We had to explain to the audience that he
wouldn't be writing the rest of the song till next
year and we would do it then. Oh how the British
love a cock up! (oooer missus!) On the
final chord of Sally, the audience went mad, it was a
real stormer.
After the show, we chatted to a few people in the bar
before setting off on the miserable journey home, with
Eddie still sweating and Derek hating The Clash and
The Sex Pistols...... what's up with
him?
Saturday
27th August 05
Kew
Gardens, Richmond.
I think
this has got to be the first time we have ever played
in a greenhouse. But if you've got to do it,
then it may as well be one as grand and spectacular as
the temperate house at Kew Gardens.
As we arrived, Ade & Dave were about to be thrown
out. They had got to Kew in plenty of time, but
had to wait around for the stage to be built and
consequently were very pushed for time. The set
up window they had was being reduced minute by minute
and they hadn't got things as they wanted them.
Event organiser, Dale, came out and explained that we
would have a few minutes to make the necessary
adjustments in a bout 10 minutes time....and by the
way "I thought there were four of
you?" We explained that Eddie was keen
botanist, and had gone to explore some rare bushes he
had spotted behind Ades van.
Rather than traipse to the hotel that had been
provided for us to change in and come back in a mini
bus, we decided it was altogether more sensible to
change in the potting room underneath the greenhouse.
Question: What is the most popular enquiry of band
members to Event Organisers at corporate doos?
Answer: How far behind are they running?
Closely followed by..... "And how long do you
want?"
With ten minutes to go before we were due to hit the
stage, Dale returned to give us our notice. He
still seemed greatly concerned that there were STILL
only 3 of us. Up to this point Eddie had been
the invisible man, and was skulking round the corner
amongst the artificial xmas trees (in
Kew Gardens!!! didn't seem right....a bit like
seeing Jane McDonald on Live8) { not that I have
anything personal against the songstress, but I saw
her singing Nowhere Man once, and I had to hide behind
the couch} adding the finishing and exhaustive
touches to his theatrical headgear. [if that sentence
makes sense...I'm a Dutchman.... lost me flow
now......]
ermmm.. oh yeah.... The speech that
had been prepared to introduce us was
hysterical. It was one of those rambling
monologues using as many Beatle songs as possible...
you know the sort of thing... "Ladies and
Gentlemen, its been a hard days night, and for
some of you, it wont be long before dr.
Robert calls you up and gets no reply......etc
etc.. Anyway!!!! our cue to go
on stage was Octopuses Garden. And so there we were,
hiding in a load of trees and tropical bushes,
discussing whether or not we would kill the plants if
we weed' on them, waiting for how that salty song
could be fitted into the speech..... A
unanimous 'badly"
The gig itself, was fairly typical of such soirees. A
handful of people who stood, examined, appreciated,
clapped and generally 'dug' us; and the rest of
them who couldn't really give two shits.
"Well... I'm very cynical as you know Ted!".
I think we all quite liked the gig though, the sound
was good and, I dunno... sometimes you just enjoy
playing, whatever the circumstance.
We packed up what we hadn't eaten from the rider to
take on the journey (little squirrels that we are),
and said are fond farewells to Trace.. who had, all
night flitted from being our mate to being very...
agent-y..with great aplomb. We had lots of
laughs.
