Pretty much like our initial thoughts at the The Chase a couple of weeks ago, walking in here was a little intimidating due to the number of people in the pub. Just a handful of people is always demoralising, not just because we are trying to promote ourselves, but because we try to have fun and involve the crowd as much as we can. Andy is always drumming it into us (excuse the pun) that playing a gig is 10% musical talent and 90% stagecraft. In the beginning the rest of us could not grasp this concept but after all of the gigs done this year, it is slowly coming together and we actually love playing the crowd, as long as they are up for it. You know pretty early on whether banter is going to be appreciated and if its not we turn to each other for support to get through the night. The musicians of the band randomly throw in deliberate bum notes to keep each other on their toes and Beanz tells Jock that he loves him knowing that his "camp not gay" perception would be shattered and cause a smile!
This was a strange gig looking back. It was as if we played it backwards. In the beginning the few people present were nodding heads and singing along but the second set sort of tailed off to nothing with no encores requested. When this happens, despite not being labelled and covering a wide variety of music, we as a band feel that either people dont like us or dont like the music we play. Saying that however, there have always been people outside the pub afterwards patting us on the back for a job well done and recommending further venues that they assume we will be appreciated at. Very confusing signals. As much as we like feedback after a gig and the possibility of future recommendations, we would prefer it to happen during our performance, so that we can feel assured that our audience is being entertained and moreover having fun, which is what we as a band started out to do.
We tried another different set up this time round as we have had an issue for some time with Jock struggling to hear himself, resulting in him turning his amp up to Dans disagreement. We have had issues at numerous gigs with getting the sound right. What you have to realize is what we hear behind the PA speakers is totally different from what everybody else hears out front, and it proves to be a continuing uphill struggle for any musician to perform well when unable to hear what you need on stage. We think, after several months of discussion, sometimes heated, we have finally found a short term solution that can be worked on for future performances. Since the unreliability of our powered monitor speaker, Dan had a fantastic idea of using our back up Peavey amp to power all three monitors. It worked ok at The Chase but still had its faults and we came to the conclusion that Andys bass amp that Jock is using is pretty old now and becoming tired. Jock has now agreed to use his own equipment at gigs, and tonight at the Market House Tavern, he sported his new toy which in conjunction with the new monitor set up, seemed to work a lot better in Jocks favour. The new bass amp looks the business and even has a gauge on it. Not sure what it is for at the moment but it looks good!
At this point we would also like to thank Andy aka tracksuit boy, for fixing an old stereo amp of Dans which can now be used to power our monitors and allow Dan to control what comes out of which speaker independantly makin g it easier for us on stage.
We had a rock n roll moment tonight also. Not sure if it was the couple of ladies dancing on the springy wooden floor or the power of Jocks new bass amp, but it appeared that we actually managed to shake a glass jug off of the ceiling shelf! Glad it did not hit anyone. Overall, we enjoyed ourselves and feedback at the end suggested we were appreciated. Thanks again to our posse who came and applauded. Its special to us that you continue to attend and offer your support. We just wish it could have been busier, especially as it was Jocks last gig of the year!
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