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