ReTrio at the Greyhound Bury St Eds

Well what a surprise to be playing this local pub.  Claire had worked here as a barmaid in the early 21st century,  but it had been completely remodelled since then to move the bar from the middle to the East end of the pub.  Clearance of some old settees meant that there was room at the West end for a band to play.  Not as tight a fit as the Tollgate but still quite cosy for a three piece that has to leave access to the cellar!  Mind you they had a 5 piece: "Five Ska" earlier in the month and they fitted in apparently.   Chris the Drum had talked us up to get the gig. On the day I parked round the back and introduced myself to Phil the manager.  He showed me some rickety power points and as soon as I plugged my circuit breaker in it tripped the power -  I got Phil to fix it as the others arrived.  I advised Chris the bass to use the high socket on his side for the lights but I would run the rest off the TV socket I had just got fixed.  Set up went OK. Chris had fitted the new ReTrio logo to his kit and it looked great.  Too bad it came unstuck towards the end of the night - but it is definitely the way to go for a retro band.

I was just using just one Bose and,  although it looked tight, there was about 4 inches clearance from the ceiling.  Had a bit of trouble with the mixer cutting out on the guitar channel,  but a burst of high volume seemed to clear it - mental note to get the Line 6 mixer working as soon as possible!  Chris the Drum went out to listen to the basic band sound and reported it as too toppy.  Well it was set very toppy at the previous gig so it was no big deal to bring that down a bit and restore some of the bass.  Be good when we do get to use the Line 6 mixer 'cos it can record 30 seconds of the band doing the soundcheck.  You can then set that to repeat as you walk round the hall making adjustments on your iPad! Anyway I left our background musak playing and had a walk round.  The sound didn't carry as well in volume as it usually does to the back,  but it remained very clear.  I settled down for a beer just as Jacqui and Bridget arrived.  Trudy had hurt her back so she was having a night in.  Abbie is going to take some life time out and go travelling so it's unlikely she will be singing with us for quite a while.  I already had my white tee shirt and black trousers on so it only remained for me to slip on my waistcoat and shiny shoes and I was set. I did a bit of glad handing and explained the sort of stuff we do to an interested couple. There were about 30 in the pub and maybe 20 in the courtyard as we gathered for a start about 8:15pm and opened up with "Flingel Bunt" which got a good reception.  After "Just One Look,  Heartbeat and Beautiful Body" I skipped the softer stuff and cracked on with the rock n roll.  We were going down pretty well but there were a couple in their 20s who were rather drunk and dancing dangerously near the band.  We kept them going until they needed another drink and I think he was sent home?  I did a bit of a Shads Walk to "Apache" which got a great reception.  I slipped in a new fast country song we had tried out in the week:  "Guitars Cadillacs".  It went pretty well for a first outing.  It is quite demanding for me playing the solos, singing lead, switching harmoniser - all at quite a pace,  but I managed it and it went down as well as the other stuff.

Continuing the country feel we brought "Ring of Fire" into set 1 and signed off with "Green Green Grass".  I was pretty happy with the set performance and bantering but the sound wasn't great in my opinion,  so I made a few small adjustments to increase middle push on vocals and guitar in the break.  Jacqui and Bridget had decided to pop off home - it was a bit too Saturday night pub atmosphere for them!  We resumed for set 2 with the 60's sounds: "Tambourine Man, Eight Days and Walk In the Room".  Then I introduced Chris to do Delilah.  He couldn't get out though; so he had to do it on the kit.  Actually the audience loved it and sang along lustily.  That set the pattern for the rest of the night - we either had them rocking or singing along!  It began to dawn on me that the poor vocal sound was due to a miss match in levels into the Vocal 300 echo unit.  Couldn't deal with it on the night,  but made a mental note to fix it for the next gig.  We finished the set with my rendition of "Wonder of You".  I had put a lot of effort into working this up during the week and was confident of all but the final "Wonder of You---" line.  Elvis takes it up an octave.  It is well within my range but it is quite demanding to do it powerfully as chest voice.  Actually it played out well - we had the audience participating strongly and so many joined in at the end that I could really go for my vocal knowing it would be one amongst many.  I got it good enough,  but there is room to improve!  We took a short break then regrouped for set 3.  So far we had done 2 x 45 and this one we planned to do a bit longer.  So we played through the list with no skipped songs.  There is lot of sing-a-long in there and we were going down well with an increasingly well lubricated crowd.  We reached the usual high point with "American Trilogy" and after a request for "F B I" approached the end with a medley of "Hey Baby - Hi Ho"  In the week I told the boys we would drop "The Twist" and replace it with "Hippy Hippy Shake" and then we would do "All Right Now" which I would announce as the last number.  And that's how it panned out.  We got the shouts for more and encored with "Johnny B Goode and Wonderful Tonight" to finish on a high from a pretty good night's performance despite a slightly rough sound. The set had lasted an hour. I was due to make an early start to Bristol the next morning so I set about pack up with gusto,  but I was quite knackered by the time we loaded the last few bits in.  Still it was only a 5 minute run home!  We made it to Bristol OK and I had an enjoyable afternoon at the Festival at St Michael's Hill accompanied by several lagers!!

ReTrio at the Tollgate

Chris the Drum had secured this first pub gig for the band.  I walked the 2 miles to it on the Thursday evening to survey it.  One of the bar girls showed me round. When it is very warm the bands play on the patio;  but there is no cover so you have to be certain it will not rain.  Normally the bands play tucked into a corner of the main bar.  There looked to be enough room for a trio so I was happy enough to order another half pint before I marched the 2 miles home.  Come the night Carl was over and offered to help load in.  We did squeeze into the corner but on my side we had to keep a clear space for people to move between bars (and the fire exit).  This made it a very tight squeeze and I had to place some of my FX pedals in between some of the drum hardware and hope to get my foot through the forest of stands to switch the echo or harmoniser!  Abbie was taking some time out, so it would be just the band which made it easier.  Sound check revealed quite a bassy sound;  I had to push the top up quite a bit on the equalisers - I even pushed up the final slider on the graphic equaliser a bit.  We changed into tees and waistcoats and opened up with our usual sequence. Although the pub was half empty we got good applause from the beginning and soon had some banter going.  Chris Drum had expressed an interest in singing "Crystal Chandelier",  so I put him on the spot and said 'give it a go and I'll do a harmony on the chorus'.  Well he got off to a strange rhythm and could only remember one verse.  Then he put me on the spot calling for a solo.  We did finish together - 'it will be alright next time' I said encouragingly and he said 'he would do his homework on the words etc'.  We carried on through a typical 3 sets playing to an attentive audience and in the last set working up some banter with some chaps enjoying their beer.  They asked for F B I and as we played it they danced up to the bar marching in time with the music, then ordering beers while marching on the spot.  Most enjoyable for the band to see and quite original in my experience!  They started to sing a long with the last few songs and then requested a Kylie song.  I shoulda done "Locomotion" but didn't think quick.  So we did Kylie's version of "Hey Baby" instead!  We finished with "Johnny B Goode" getting a raucous response with shouts for more.  But we were under orders to finish at 11 so declined the encore.  Not a bad night.  Our entourage reported it as the best sounding, most upbeat performance yet and the management were very pleased.  He is only trying out live music though and isn't sure if he can make it pay.  Nevertheless we hope to get booked back.  Short journey home and a quiet rest of the weekend to look forward to.

ReTrio at Tolly Fest Bury St Edmunds Charity Do

Tolly Fest runs for 2 days on the sports field at the Sugar Factory Social to raise funds for charities.  ReTrio had been booked to follow the Funky Voices Choir who opened the festival on the Sunday.  Our 90 minute spot would be at 1:30pm.  We arrived at noon on a sunny day and got ushered down the band entrance to park behind the trailer parked on the sports field that was the stage for the day.   The 50 strong choir were massing as we unloaded and they started their set on the grass in front of the stage as we manhandled our back line up onto the trailer.  We didn't have a lot to set up - I was using my Mesa Lonestar,   Chris had his Harkte stack and Chris had his usual kit.   I was going to operate without a music stand and the PA guys would look after everything else.   So after about 20 minutes  we were set and could retire for a beer while the choir continued their show. They do some nice songs I particularly liked their version of "Mr Blue Sky".   Jacqui and her friend Sue arrived and I set them up in a sunny spot at the edge of the field. 

  
The two Chris's entourage had also gathered so there were possibly a hundred people spread out across the site as the choir finished their spot.  We went up to sound check about 12:50pm.  The PA guys miked the Mesa up (SM57 to edge of the speaker) and DI'd Chris's bass.  The kit was miked up with 2 AKG C1000 overhead and a proper bass drum mic.  As soon as I got the Mesa powered up I realised there was a problem with hum.  It was some kind of earth hum that became very intrusive if I took my hands off the strings.  I briefly considered switching to the spare Fender Ultimate Chorus I'd brought along,  but I (wrongly) concluded it was the diesel generator power supply that was at fault.  The guys on the mixer indicated they could filter the worst out so - carry on!  The sound guys were very efficient on the sound check doing sound for each member of the band in about 5 minutes in total.  I ended up with quite a powerful sound on my guitar with the Mesa volume set to half and some coming back through the monitors.  With hindsight I should have taken the Mesa down to third volume and pushed it up on the guitar a bit more,  but 'hey ho'.  I asked for a bit more top on the SM58 vocal mic and that seemed nice and strong as well - so we were ready to rock!  We went to the back of the cars for a wee in the bushes and to get changed into the white Tees with black waistcoats. Climbing back on the trailer we took our positions and the sound man said it was all ours for 90 minutes.  I started with a big "Helloooo Tolly Fest" and introduced the band and our chosen charity - cancer research.  Then it was over to Chris to start "Flingel Bunt" and we were away.  With a powerful sound we rocked a bit harder than usual and when I followed up with a vocal with "Heartbeat" we kept it faster and rockier than our usual easy listening feel. 

 

 

We were getting applause from the field but the audience were very distant so it was hard to judge how we were doing.   We ploughed on with a variety of country,  rock n roll and the odd ballad,  they all got applause but the closest to dancing was a bit of drunken swaying near the club room bar!  Playing a bit faster in the dry air I found a couple of the solos a bit tricky to bash out - I made a few ad lib easings to get by but nothing the crowd would notice.  After an hour I called a short toilet break and we took to the bushes.  Coming back from the hedge I bumped into Jacqui who had popped over to report that the sound was very good and the band was playing well.  So we clambered back enthusiastically to do the final 30 minutes.  I opened with "Great Balls of Fire" and kept it rocking.  I was quite enjoying the singing role and, taking advantage of the relaxed atmosphere, I gave it my best shot!  With 10 minutes to go I called for "American Trilogy".  We had talked about doing this without special effects and we were up for it.  I opened up with the guitar.  The vocal sounded strong and we took it through at a steady pace without any significant mistakes.  I switched the guitar echo on for the solo and kept it on for the big ending crescendo.  The last couple of lines are demanding to sing but I was pitching it OK and I went for the high chest voice on the last line.  I could hold the final note for four bars but then ran out of puff.  As I backed away from the mic I was feeling faint from the exertion and a recent drop in fitness (hadn't played squash for a month);  but I dipped my head as we finished the song and recovered slowly taking my time announcing "All Right Now" as our last number.  Considering we hadn't done this for a while it went very well,  I had to improvise some of the solo that I had forgotten but the crowd seems to like it and we actually had a few up and dancing.  We finished to some applause and then it was pack the gear up and clear the stage for the next band "The Keepers". 

They were an interesting band with a young drummer and bass player led by a 30 something guy on acoustic guitar and vocals.  They also had a young lady on acoustic guitar who looked new to the set up.  The drummer sometimes played cajon and it was good to hear one miked up out front.  They did a varied set of covers and own penned songs which I found pleasant listening on a sunny afternoon armed with a beer.  We stayed for the next band as well - standard vintage rock with a 30 something female singer.  Jacqui being supportively biased said we did "Alright Now" better!  We left the field about 5:30pm to set off home - a good day out for ReTrio and its supporters.