Brewers Arms 30/01/10

Another cracking night at our old standing favourite "The Brewers Arms".

It was a special one tonight as it was the 60th birthday of Gorilla. A regular to the pub and a fan of ours it appears! We were honoured that you asked us to play for the second time at one of your lifelong milestones and would do it again, no questions asked!

The night started off as usual at Andy's house with all five of us turning up to undertake the crap bit of loading the van. Yes, you read that right, EVERYONE turned up this time and the van was loaded in record time allowing us to chill a bit before actually leaving for the gig!

We used the Beanzmobile this week allowing Andy to have a drink. Although seeming happy, he needed a bit of TLC. You see, if reversing his van into another car last week didn't upset him, his tree climbing experience this week in the Porsche certainly brought a tear to his eye and he is starting to question whether or not he is too old to continue as a chav. Luckily, our bass player Jock is a full time psychiatric nurse and was available to listen with an unbiased ear. In no uncertain terms he confirmed that yes, Andy is too old to be a chav and should stop driving his collection of toys like a toddler on a skateboard! Whilst initially in denial, Andy agreed and says that his problem stems from a lack of horsepower during his childhood. He perked up after a camp but not gay group hug. Nothing like a bit of male bonding to get you perked and ready to perform!

We got to the pub around 745 and proceeded to unload the van. There were a few chaps playing darts where we normally set up so we bought a round of drinks and sat down allowing them to finish their game.

Actually, that's not true! We did buy a round of drinks but then we all went back out to the van and left Jock who volunteered, to politely ask them to hurry up! Not sure what he said but the guys came running out of the pub scared out of their wits shouting "That blokes a nutter!" We can only assume that he used his Hannibal Lectar style councilling tactics...........That's not true either! We unpacked the gear around them and waited for them to finish in their own time. Once allowed free roam of the band area, we all mucked in and did our bit to set the gear up. As we were doing so, the guests started rolling in and Gorilla himself gave each of us a handshake.

We kicked off around 905 with a new sound check song this time round. We did a version AC/DC's "Back In Black". Not a strong one, but our first time doing it live. Going forward, we intend to soundcheck with our newly learnt stuff -  a) to see if goes down with the crowd ok, and b) to ascertain what it sounds like live. You'd be surprised at how different live gigs are compared to practicing in the loft! If we can put a tick in both boxes, then we will consider putting a new song in the set list somewhere.

Speaking of the set list, we crammed as much as we could on this one, especially as it was a party as such, but on reflection afterwards, we have decided in fact to trim our sets down a bit, allowing us to focus on a more quality performance. Less is more as they say, however this doesn't stop you asking for more when we've finished! In fact, taking some stuff out of the usual performance means we will have more to play with at the end of the night! With such a full two sets on the bill for tonight, plus the time we wasted during our shock role reversal (more about this later), we did actually run into extra time with the performance and had to knock off our ever requested "Freebird".

With the exception of adding a couple more, we kept our set pretty much to the same format as our last gig at The Drake which seemed to work! One comment from the singer of another band that came to see us was along the lines of "Blimey, that's a hard work first set. We prefer to open up with some good 'uns, then come down a bit to warm up ready for a great finale!" Whilst this does seem to be the typical format, we prefer to go all out hard performance from the beginning in a hope that people will notice, remember and recommend the time and effort we put into our gigs. As our band motto suggests, we don't have grand delusions of stardom, we are not rockstars, nor are we a tribute band. We're not trying to secure record deals here or make loads of money, we're up there because we enjoy doing it so much and love the people that visually express their appreciation for us!

The first set was predominately our rock and punk stuff. A young lad showed great interest in our musical taste and was asked several times to come up and join in. He knew the words and was rocking out real good, but was wasted sat at a table! As mentioned in previous blogs, we don't mind, in fact we love people to get involved. As it happens, when we kicked off God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols, his dad looked at Beanz for permission to come aboard which of course was granted immediately! Steve actually did the duet extremely well and performed it with attitude. Exactly what the doctor ordered for a song like that and Beanz said afterwards it was the best duet he had ever performed with the band. Not only was it entertaining for us, but it pleased the crowd too, who will now probably go away and talk about it to others. Steve, you were a star mate, well done and please feel free to participate again!

The set went down quite well and we all retired around 1000 for a well earned break. Once again, despite telling ourselves to be more disciplined on break time, we ran over again but with good reason. As this was a party, we had to allow people time to consume the food. We were very impressed that there was any left as it was strategically placed on the pool table directly next to Harley who resisted temptation and didn't touch any! Well done mate - true to your word you're actually sticking to your diet and looking good for it too! Keep on at this rate and we'll have to beat the girls off with the spare guitar! Beanz wishes he could apply the same amount of successful will power to his smoking habit. We are all ever hopeful and sure that his vocals could only get better if his lungs were permitted to de-pollute! Jock was happy tonight too despite not drinking as he had to drive home and Andy was Andy. He's always happy but suffering with a bit of stiffness since moulding his car around a tree trunk. Coincidently it seems we all have a need to shed something recently. Andy's "boys toys", Harley's weight, Beanz's smoking and Jock's lager!

When we were confident that everyone had consumed enough food, we went back on at around 1045 and kicked off the second set with a difference. Unaware to the musical talents of Harley, Jock & Andy, the audience were in for a treat! Or was it a total waste of time? We all enjoyed it but if you didn't, let us know! It was a little light entertainment that's all!

We started the set with Paranoid by Black Sabbath but the musicians of the group switched places. We now had Jock on lead guitar, Andy on bass and Harley on the drums. It didnt appear that anyone noticed so we deliberatly started the song totally out of tune and out of time. Still not the reaction we had hoped for so we mucked it up again. Finally we had to step in and sort of prompt the situation. We asked birthday boy to approach the stage and said to him that something has gone wrong and it simply wasn't working. A very drunk Gorilla sort of looked puzzled and then realized saying, "Well, 'ang on a minute! He should be there, he should be there and he should be over there!" Yay!!! he got it!

We assured him that we would sort it out and instead of switching back to their origional places, Jock, Harley & Andy simply swapped thir infamous hats so that each one corresponded with it's normal instrument. Harley gave Jock his Stetson; Andy gave Harley the shiny helmet; Jock gave Andy the Cliff Richard tennis peak and just to top it off, Andy pulled out a spare beard from his back pocket and put it on! Superb, even Jock didn't know about that bit!! It's seems to be a rule of thumb for us that bass players sport beards! Jock has one and our occasional stand in Chaz also sports a bit of facial hair, so why not? Andy's theory was you can't play the notes if you don't have the growths!! With all of that out of the way, we then played the song as if nothing had happened. Harley banging the drum kit could have passed as the ape on the Cadburys advert; Jock looked like he could have actually been a living member of Lynyrd Skynyrd on lead guitar and Andy, well he looked like Brian Blessed as a bus conductor. It was funny and we enjoyed doing it not to mention the applause that followed. It's not every day that you get to see band members switch instruments! The only one who didn't was Beanz but then we don't do any songs that require the use of a badly played recorder anyway!

Moving on into the more well know dancey section of the set, Kerry & Shirl, looking as gorgeous as ever came up as the A32's once again and performed "Love Shack" with us. It was more of a success this time round as they had obviously been practising! Not only did they sing, they gave a little dance with it too! Excellent, you girls looked good from behind so out front should have been even better! They also backed for us on a few of the others too but Parklife and You Really Got Me were reserved tonight for birthday boy Gorilla. We knew how much he loved joining in last year when we did his anniversary so he didn't need to be asked twice this time. What a good sport - it was good entertainment for all!

Towards the end of the set, Harley; Jock & Andy had been working on away to integrate two songs together reducing the need to take a lunch break between songs. Incorporating his own chord change riff, Harley ran I Love To Boogie straight into Crazy Little Thing Called Love and the splice went well. He did however, manage to break a string through the song and had to use his quick thinking to get over it. Rather than stopping altogether, he made something up that seemed to fit unoticably. Beanz decided that introducing the band in the middle of I Love To Boogie was getting a bit monotonous for everyone including us, so decided to try it through Little Willy instead. Again, this seemed to just "fit" better. It's not always easy or sometimes appropriate to chat and banter with the audience so we will be looking to splice other songs together soon which should reduce the amount of time wasted. The final few songs had to be performed with Andy's spare guitar and fair play, despite being a totally different brand, style and size, Harley did it with little or no fault.

We finished well over time tonight with good old Johnny B Goode and it was nice to see Tanya and her daughter getting up and doing a bit of rock 'n' roll dancing! Despite the time, an encore was requested and we carried on with Down Under rolling into Born To Be Wild. More applause and requests for Freebird were vocally thrown towards us but we really had run out of time and just couldn't do any more! After chilling out for a bit, we proceeded to break down the gear and reload the van whilst everyone else prepared to depart.

Another fantastic night over. Thanks to all who came. Thanks to Kerry & Shirl for appearing as the A32's once more but our biggest thanks goes to Gorilla for having the faith and confidence in us to perform for you in a personal booking for a second time. The closing note of your e-mail after the event speaks volumes and we appreciate it!

"Ta - You De Boyz!"

Kneeslider website awarded "Trustworthy Site" badge

Trust - The web site is reliable, noble, honest and trustworthy.

Worthy - The web site is of value to the internet community.

This is to certify that all web sites showing the ‘Trust Worthy Website’ seal are:

• Family Friendly
• Child Safe Surf
• Highly Ethical
• Spam Free
• Legal Web Site

All merit goes to their respective Webmasters and Webmistresses for their professional work!

Kneeslider obtains second website award!

Wow! Another company we sent our site off to evaluate and feedback any errors and has come back to us. Not only have they provided us with a comprehensive evaluation and constructive feedback concerning certain issues, they also attached a "Bronze" award to the e-mail aswell!

Whilst we weren't expecting one, we are chuffed to bits with the feedback and can now start to resolve the functionality issues and go for the next step up the ladder. This award program offers Bronze; Silver & Gold awards with a Merit or Non Evaluation available for sites that don't quite meet certain criteria. As said previously, we have built our website ourselves and to have feedback like this is fantastic!

You may or may not have noticed the Nodus Award Badge on our homepage - if you get 5 minutes, please click on it and leave your own feedback for us and others to read. We need your input to imrove!

Comments from evaluations:

Your site (http://www.kneeslider.net) now has an official Nodus Awards score. You have been awarded Bronze! (10 / 16) Congratulations! ...Your site is of good quality in most areas but lacks a polished feel overall.

For it's genre - probably one of the best i've seen! Not just about the band but quite a bit of misc pages and interactivity too!

The Admiral Drake - 22/01/10

Once again we find ourselves in an embarrasing situation! Despite making it public in the last blog (Heroes) that Beanz would make a special effort to remember a mention for Dan (our sound engineer) whilst introducing the band...........HE FORGOT! Sorry Dangermouse, it's not intentional but Beanz sort of got sidetracked with all the excitement! Feel free to come up and kick him in the goolies next time - he won't forget then!

Right then, The Admiral Drake......wow, what a cracking night! Another cancellation gig based on reputation we'd like to think. Calling just the night before, Simon asked us to cover and of course we obliged. The Admiral Drake is another "sort after" venue on the live band circuit and like a few others, we've been trying to get in since we started out over a year ago. Not only was it our first Portsmouth gig, it is renowned as a "biker" pub and we knew beforehand that a lot of our old Portsdown Hill Biker crowd use it as their local.

Against the grain so to speak, it appeared quite empty when we first arrived. Oh dear! Either the band that was due to play weren't in for a good night, or people heard we were gigging instead and fled the city! (Did we mention that Dan is our sound engineer?)

We arrived around 730 a little stressed as Andy had pranged his van a couple of hours beforehand, and the Beanzmobile was well out of the area. We were not sure at first if we were able to use it as the back light and door was slightly dented, but it all worked fine so we cracked on with it. (Tip for Andy, if you hang your shiny tin helmet on one of the mirrors, you might get a better view around the van!) Being a Friday night, both Jockness and Harleypoos turned up when they could due to work commitments. Andy, finishing early on Fridays and Beanz being a doley proceeded to set up with Dan (did we mention that Dan is our sound engineer?) Hang on.......no I'm mistaken.......Jockness met us at Andy's and assisted with the loading this time! See, I should have wrote this blog whilst it was fresh in my mind, my memory seems to be omitting bits!

By the time we were set up the pub still seemed only half full. Feedback from other bands who have played there had mentioned that the crowd were hard work to get any reactions and in conjunction with the lack of body's, it sort of put a downer on things. We aslo noticed that whilst preparing, the jukebox playing in the background blurted out three songs from our set list. This isn't particularly a good thing and should be avoided where possile but we looked at it in a different light. If someone actually paid money to listen to those songs, then it means whoever it was appreciated them and wouldn't mind hearing them live! Due to our guvner, Wayne Tarrantino, advising us that Highway To Hell, despite only being a sound check should be avoided, we did it with Sandstorm by Cast instead. (By the way, did we remember to tell you that Dan is our sound engineer?)

The sound check went well with little complication and by the time it was over, it was pretty much time to start. Beanz jiggled the set around a little bit and instead of taking it easy for the first set allowing both us and the crowd to warm up, we went balls out from the start! Our first set was predominately rock and punk and from the off, we heard cheering and applause following each song. This immediately put us at ease and confirmed that really, we didn't have much to worry about. Even Simon, the landlord, came downstairs during the first set and apparantly, according to the locals, this is a rare occurence. Coincidence? We don't know but it made us feel good anyways! Nearing the end of the first set, the pub was still quiet in comparison to a normal Friday night, but was full enough to see most people were enjoying themselves, singing along and dancing around. Despite us becoming stricter on our break in the middle, we allowed ourselves longer tonight as we had about another hours worth and Simon wanted us to play until around 1130. (Did you know that the little guy sat at the table with a load of knobs and switches is Dan? He's our sound engineer!)

During the break, we took it upon ourselves to mingle a little bit as we were extremely curious to know what the general feeling was towards us. We didn't hear any bad feedback and one guy in particular went right up in Waynes face shouting "Them boys are in a class of their own. Covering all genres. F***ing brilliant!"

Drunk or not, he's our friend for life! We went back on about 1030 and by this time, even more people had flooded the bar area. Our second set was the more dancey stuff and there were quite a few people up front jigging about. In the absence of Keychelle & Shirl of the A32's, we'd like to thank Beanz brother-in-law Warren for getting up and doing some backing vocals with his mate Sam. It's nice to know that if we are ever short of a bass player, Warren could fill in and do it vocally! We'd also like to thank Pauline, the lovely Mrs of Russ from Russ's Tyres for coming up and backing too, though drowned out by a very drunk susquatch, (Warren), she showed good spirit and helped us out!

(If you happen to see a little rodent like geyser playing with knobs, that's Dan, our sound engineer. Did we tell you that already?)

We finished just about on time around 1130ish with our usual Johnny B Goode featuring Wipeout and it went down really well. Instead of standing like a lemon whilst Jock, Harley and Andy did their superb performance, Beanz went and sat down so that thet were forefront of the view. It's a horrible thing to say but when Beanz stands in the front, you can't see much else!

Simon glanced over and stuck two fingers up with a wink. No, he wasn't telling us to go forth and multiply, he was requesting two more songs! We were so glad as the pub were shouting for more and didn't seem to want us to leave just yet. In true Kneeslider fashion, we did one of our strongest, Born To Be Wild and ran it straight into our personal favourite at the moment, our own version of Down Under. The response to this particular song was unbelievable and at first we thought something was wrong with the equipment. It turns out that most of the pub were singing along to it and drowning us out! Rock On! That's exactly what we want! As it came to a close, and we said our goodnights, they still weren't satisfied and of course, the shouting for more, more, more had to be subdued with our rendition of Freebird. Apart from Down Under, it seems to be the favourite amongst our entourage at the moment. It was funny to see Warren at the back of the pub waving a lighter around, enticing people to sway their hands in some sort of Mexican wave. He was however, alone, but due to the sheer size of him, it appeared that loads of people were joining in! That was until the slow bit drew to an end anyway and then Jock, Harley and Andy went absolutely bananas for a big finale with loads of applause.

Overall, a superb night. Once again, we came, we rocked! We made 'em 'ave it as the bearded one would say.

We'd like to thank Simon of Admiral Drake for giving us the opportunity to play his pub. We hope you get as good feedback in our absence as we did whilst there. Thanks to Darren of the Paparazzi for stepping up and helping Beanz out with the vocals for Vertigo, after he was slowly running out of puff! Thanks to all of our usual followers for showing support yet again but most of all we'd like to thank everyone in the Drake that night for making us feel welcome and doing completely the opposite of what we were told you'd be like!

We sincerely hope you enjoyed listening to the gig as much as we enjoyed playing it and we hope to be back here soon.

One last thing, if you were the man stood at the end of the bar wearing a suit and sporting a well used camera that night, please get in touch. Whilst you looked like you were enjoying yourself, your constant photo taking and mingling with the crowd whilst pointing at us, has got us all all intrigued! Who are you?

On a final note, we'd like to introduce Dan, he's our sound engineer. Cheers for doing another good job mate and Beanz says if you so much as try and kick him in the goolies, you'll know exactly what feedback is, by way of a microphone up your nose!


Best Regards,

The Boys

The Heroes - 15/01/10

Our first gig of 2010 and in a new venue, but before we commence reminiscing the event, Beanz would like to apologise to our Sound Engineer Dan. Once again he forgot to mention him whilst introducing the band and we know how Dan likes to feel included! Sorry Dan, wasn't intentional and Beanz promises to write your name in big letters on his notes in future! xxx

Right, that's the serious bit out of the way, lets crack on with the gig!

Pretty much like the Colonial Bar, we had been pestering the Heroes to give us a try out since we started in 2008. Umpteen phonecalls and visits to the pub had seemed useless in our attempts to play, but we understand that they are quite a popular live music venue and have "big" bands on all the time. In the beginning, being unknown, it was hard for us to get opportunities anywhere, let alone here.

We managed to secure this date thanks to Darren of the well known and respected "Paparazzi". They have played the Heroes on numerous occasions but due to an injury sustained by one of their band members in the recent weather conditions, they were unable to gig. What was an unfortunate loss to them was an opening opportunity for us and we are really grateful for the nomination.

It turns out that when Darren suggested that we cover the date for them, the pub responded that they had heard of us and intended to book before, but simply never got round to it! Cheers Darren for prompting them and nominating us to step in for you!

Considering this was our first gig for quite a few weeks, and one that was taken on at very short notice, we were a little apprehensive about our 'rustyness'. We had our first practice only two days previous and it actually seemed we had gone backwards six months. Experience says, crap rehearsal good gig and vice versa. This wasn't strictly true on this occasion! After a night full of mistakes by everyone during practice, exactly the same happened on the night but we have been playing long enough together now to anticipate what to do in the situation. It's irrelavent as long as we laugh it off, have a good time and relay the fun out into the crowd. We have succeeded in this on more than one occasion and typically people don't care as long as they're having a good time.

We arrived around 730 after loading the van, which took longer than usual due to having to walk it all over very icey pavements. As per usual, we went in and checked out the stage area prior to setting up and immediately a light bulb appeared over our heads. The stage was a raised wooded area and we had forgot to pack Andy's 4x4 peice of carpet. Without it he would have ended up drumming in the rear garden area by the end of the night! Luckily enough, we were only 5 minutes away and Dan kindly ran Andy home to get it whilst Beanz, Harley and Jock continued to unload the van. We did the best we could considering the drums are typically set up first. Every minute that passed seemed like fifteen - time was going too quick with loads to do - it was going to be tight getting started on time. By the time Andy got back, everything was spread over the floor and he set up his drums in record time! For the first time ever, it seemed that everybody 'mucked in' setting everything up rather than their own equipment leaving Dan to sort the cabling. It worked well and we were ready to sound check by 900. We kicked off with 'Highway to Hell' by AC/DC to iron out any problems. Dan made sure there weren't any major issues and due to the late start, we went straight into the first set. Reactions were slow coming in the beginning but towards the end of the first set, more people came from the other bars to join us and seemed to appreciate our efforts. Despite rumours that the Heroes had become quiet of late, and the regulars being prominately of the younger generation, we were pleasantly surprised to have quite a full pub with varying age groups.

We were strict with ourselves concerning the break this time round and after a quick drink and a fag, we promptly cracked on with the second set. We had no volunteers to assist us with the songs requiring "backing" in this set and it was nice as always to have Kerry & Shirl (two out of our three guest backers "The A-32's") on hand to fill in the blanks. Where was Dil? Come back, we miss you! We still maintain that we would love nothing more than people who feel like they want to have a sing song to come up and join us. It's not all about the music, it's also about having fun! So your mates might laugh and take the Michael but they will love you for it and talk about it to others for days to come! There are a lot of bands out there who get really stressed out if things don't go to plan, or people try to muscle in on their limelight. We're not one of them so if we perform a song that you know or like, get your hiney up on stage a grab a mic. Your talents are wasted stood in a crowd of people and we don't bite!!

Towards the end of the second set, what we call the 'dancey' bit, there were a number of young ladies dancing next to the stage and to try and keep them from retiring to their seats, we discretely changed the set list to suit the mood. We finished off with good old crowd pleaser 'Johnny B Goode' and yet again, despite not expecting it tonight, we weren't allowed to say "That's It, Goodnight!". Unless you are a performer yourself, you can't begin to imagine who gratifying it is when your efforts are truly appreciated by the shouting of "More, we want more!" That little thing, if nothing else makes it all the more satisfying for us and keeps us perservering. Three encores, including one of our favourites at the moment, "Down Under", followed by the ever requested Kneeslider rendition of "Freebird" finished off the night superbly.

Aside our usual 'groupies', for who we are forever grateful to for sticking with us (and not getting bored with the routine, and Tanya & Charlie from the Brewers Arms) we had some new faces come to show their support this time. A few people who are aquaintances but had not yet come to watch us. We'd like to say thanks to Mark, guitarist for Slack Harry; Ebay Dave from Portsdown Hill Bikers; Ron & Graham from Insane Creations Drag Racing; Steve & Emma from Solent Renegades and a fair few others accompanying them - (really sorry but we don't know your names!) - Welcome to the family all of you and we hope we haven't scarred you for life and that you come again real soon! We'd also like to take this opportunity to give special thanks to the above mentioned Graham! He was prancing about like a ninja most of the night, camera in hand, endeavouring to capture some decent shots of us. We seriously hope we didn't break your lens and we're all looking forward to seeing the shots and maybe publishing them on our site (with your permission of course).

Once finished, we all retired as per usual to chill out and mingle. The landlord came over and shook our hands for a job well done, emphasising the fact that we should expect a phonecall for more bookings. That's another favourite outcome, second only to being kept on the stage. So watch this space people, a very enjoyable and successful first gig at The Heroes in Waterlooville, the first of many, we are hopeful.

Kneeslider obtains Website Award!

It is with a sense of pride and great pleasure that we announce that we have obtained the Feebleminds "Award of Excellence" for our website!

As it is today, the site has taken about a year to build inhouse and by a complete novice. The past twelve months have seen numerous changes and concepts in an attempt to make it interactive; increase traffic and moreover, raise band awareness. Many of the changes made have been as a result of constructive feedback from our visitors, and we'd like to thank all concerned.

Site builders often takes things for granted as during construction, they know where everything is. Often, this is not so easy for the visitor, and for this reason, we shoot our website address off to a couple of reviewers to evaluate and feedback to us, anything that may cause a visitor to simply "give-up."

We have used the feebleminds website on several occasions to obtain some of our graphics and have never come away empty handed. It seems that everytime we want a special picture or graphic for our site, they have it or can obtain it. If you are contemplating building your own site, or simply want add-ons for your blogs or social networking sites etc, we totally recommend them!

In addition to providing 1000's of free images, Jeff at feebleminds also offers a review service, but there is strict criteria to meet and few awards are given out.

Whilst Jeff provided some valuable feedback concerning errors on the site, he was "that impressed", he gave us the pretigious award anyway!

We'd like to thank Jeff for taking the time to review our site and feedback where we can improve it. We'd also like to sincerely thank him for awarding us his certificate as we appreciate that they are hard to come by!

QUOTE

"First off the site does not comply with my award requirements. However, I'm that impressed, and for the first time ever you've got it!

Very nice simple design,Good layout, Good navigation, Nice colours and graphics

The bad part.

Completely useless for the search engines.

Completely useless for the visually impaired, the software they use won't get through the coding and with the lack of the image alt information tags they won't know what the images are about.

Please find my award attached.

Regards, Jeff"