Practice with Dave A

Practice with Dave A at Skeyton Hall. Went well – we did a long session. I also took the opportunity to adjust the MPX 1 reverb settings.

Thetford Conservative Club

New Agent and New Venue! Local job for me so I left at 6pm and found the gig with the aid of SatNav. Dan and Dave / Jen were already there and parked up, so we got the gear in together. The entertainment hall is down a short flight of stairs and has a small stage in one corner. Just about managed to squeeze on. The governor asked us the keep the volume down and explained the sets and raffle arrangements. We were using the new Lexicon MPX1 on reverb duties and I was using the Digitech harmoniser pedal rather than the TC rack. Set up had a few problems with leads. I wanted to omit the snake to see if I could prove whether that was involved in the monitor problems or not. We did get wired up eventually and had time for a very brief soundcheck before we had to leave the diners in peace for 45 minutes. Dave Ainsworth and his wife Pat arrived to watch the band, we explained to Dan that Dave A was our preferred dep at the present and he was likely to play through May and June with us. Got off to a good start with set 1 and it went well until Apache when Dan’s lead pulled out - but we joked it away and just restarted. We were going down very well with some good audience response and a few dancers. About half way through Dave’s monitor started to create noises so he switched it off. Unfortunately, Dan turned his monitor up to compensate and we ended up with a conspicuous bathtub sound on his mic. I was able to fix this by altering the monitor mix at the end of the set, but it points to the most likely cause of Dave’s problems being his monitor! (confirmed this at a practice session with Dave A on Sunday). Set 2 was short. We were finishing off with “No Matter” but the governor indicated one more so we actually finished with a bit of rock’n’roll. Set 3 went OK as well and we had a good dance response towards the end. I made a note that the rock’n’roll reverb was too much (and I fixed it the next day at the practice session). The governor was well pleased and said he’d like us back and we began the long process of packing up. Got away just after midnight, but unbeknown to me Dave was stuck with a jammed starter motor. He called out the AA and eventually got going just before 1am, by which time I was in bed!

Ingleside Hotel, Cromer Rd Mundlesey

Dave’s BIG 50 Party. Drove over to Dave’s meeting up at 5pm. Had a cup of tea and drove over in convoy to the gig. Backed the Galaxy up to the Function Room entrance and Steve and Dave gave me a lift in with the gear. Apparently the heating was broken and it was a bit chilly. I had a few changes to the usual gear to deal with. In the week I had changed out the PA mixer to a Mackie VLZ and power amp to a QSC 1104 600 watt; and I was using my Vox amp to give two inputs for other band configurations. Also I was setting up another stage mic and my Beatle bass for other band configs. Because I had disconnected the snake, this had to be wired up manually. Not a big deal but I needed a bit of light to see the numbers. Dave sorted that out for me and Steve helped me check the connexions. Playing around with the PA, I couldn’t hear the Behringer Enhancer adding much to the sound, but in the end I decided to use it mainly to increase bass. Dan arrived with a very bad cold, but he soon got set up and we did a bit of a soundcheck. The PA sounded quite clear on the run through and everything was working OK. Had a couple of beers and noticed there was a power cut in the main part of the hotel; kept my fingers crossed that it didn’t spread out way. Dave met and greeted his friends and relatives and I sorted out a work-a-round to get Gordon’s PA going for his 9:30 set using our speakers. We went on without changing about 8:20pm and did an hour of mainly first set stuff. It all sounded fine to me and we did a good Shadows walk which got a great round of applause. We got Martin to come up and sing “Peaceful Easy Feeling”, a bit of work needed there, but it’s the thought that counts! Met up with Ken Grover, a potential dep for Dan. He seemed pleasant enough and enthusiastic so we arranged a practice session for a week or so later. Dave had two cakes presented. After us various band configurations played before we got back on for the final set. Dave was well oiled by then but we bashed out an acceptable set. Got off home after a long pack up getting home for 2:45am.