Gig Reviews

4th October 1998 - Hare & Hounds, Talkin Village

Our first paying gig, and our first with a full set. This gig was originally planned for the August bank holiday but had to be postponed which was probably a good idea as we were only just ready with the full set. Mikes VOX had given up the ghost the week before and so he was using Laurie's Traynor. We had decided to put a little bit more effort into this show by wearing matching kit and acting the part a bit more. Now I was nervous...more nervous than last time...most of the audience I work with or know well, many of them are acomplished musicians in their own right, so the pressure was certainly on. We kicked off into 'move it' as our first number which went well but I was still VERY tense and it showed. '20 flight rock' went well too but then I changed guitars....Now we wanted to inject a little humour into our act BUT knocking all the lightshades off with the guitar headstock, then knocking the guitar stand all over the stage was not what I wanted...but it did amuse the audience. I was not convinced that we had done well at all especially after our 'customised' version of 'not fade away', but we got asked to do two encores and the reaction from the gathered masses (including the pub manageress, who of course was paying the bill...very important!) was one of great support. Once again we learned a lot but we were playing. I think that this will be one of our most difficult gigs ever because of the uncertainty of the reaction of my friends in the audience, now that it's over I have lost any reservations....onward and upward!!!

We had put a LOT of time in during this week learning from our last effort. This was to be an important gig for us, if we want to get club bookings in the future then we had to do well here! After last weeks effort I had decided that nothing could possibly produce more pressure and so I was totally chilled out. We were all looking for a good night and thats just what we got. We got a good soundcheck and had a great area to play on with that stage. There was more comedy incorporated into the set, something that we hoped would work in a club environment (it certainly would not in a pub) but we didn't know for sure as we had never tried it. Luckily the comedy went down well. We were booked to do two 1 hour sets so we had a few more numbers to do. This was by far the best we have ever played, live or at practice. There was of course a lot of learning to be done but nothing like last week. The sets went down well and more importantly the reaction from the audience let us know that we had made it. We must have done well....we've been asked back again next year!!

This was a charity special for the MacMillan Nurses. We were playing alongside another local band called Locoweed, who played a lot of Van Morrison type pieces, very well I should add. As they were playing 3 sets and us only one. We were using their PA setup and placing our kit in front of theirs. Not ideal as you may guess. We also didn't have the oportunity of doing a sound check so it was a case of having to guess levels quickly on our set-up and first track. For some reason this worked VERY well. We had a couple of monitoring problems but overall it was as good as the night before. We played a short (35 min) set, a sort of "best of". We will be playing alongside Locoweed at the Irthing centre christmas night on December 12th 1998 so this was an excellent dry run for us. Many thanks to Chas for the use of his PA and his help in setting up.

20th November 1998 - Down-a-gate, Warwick Bridge

Another Charity gig and another long break between shows so time to shake out the cob webs. The night started off in a bad way as someone got it into their heads that we were too loud…before they had even heard us play!! Not a good start. Never mind on with the show..or not, as we waited and waited until the quiz and the raffle and the meal progressed. Not really wanting to play by this time as we could see people preparing to leave and we didn't fancy playing to an empty hall (there weren't many people there in the first place). We did not have to worry, the sets went well and everybody stayed and danced the night away. We put the new Fleetwood Mac numbers into the set for the first time and they went extremely well. A bad night turned good by WIPEOUT

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