ReTrio at The Victoria Thurston

Another pub gig!  I was still suffering from the cold I had picked up and, if anything, it was worse on the chest than the previous week.  Ms J decided to accompany me and we set off at 6:30pm arriving 10 minutes later at the pub to find Chris the drum already loaded in and setting up. A brighter pub but a bit less room than last week.  Chris the bass arrived and we left Chris the drum to get on with it while we got some beers in.  As soon as Chris finished we moved in to set up.  I was a bit squashed on the left and had to face playing slightly side on to avoid hitting the wall with my guitar head.  We sound checked with "Smilin" and got a little round of applause - so I took the view it must sound alright. We had a few of our supporters there: band wives,  Trudy's mum and Les from the previous gig. 

Soon it was 8:30 and we strode up to play.  Immediate problem! No sound from the bass amp.  We faffed around trying to fix it but in the end I plugged Chris into the bass drum input on the mixer - everything would now be through the single Bose!  A kind chap in the crowd volunteered to fetch his Yamaha combo from the village while we got underway.  Once we got started we were obviously well rattled because the first few numbers were fraught with errors;  fortunately non fatal. The bass coming out the Bose was too loud for me and I had trouble hearing vocals.  But we soldiered on getting a reasonable response to our first set considering.  In the break Chris plugged into the loaned combo.  It wasn't that powerful but had a single 15 so it was deep.  I should have brought down the Bose to compensate a bit,  but I wasn't thinking straight.  Jacqui said the sound in the first set out front was OK and I should stop fretting!

We got underway for Set 2.  The bass was a bit lost in the mix now but we were playing better and we got better response generally and a really big round of applause for "Delilah"  which I had announced as sing-a-long:  and the pub crowd certainly did!  We were still making some unforced errors but when I apologised for the ragged performance it was clear no one out front had noticed - so I stopped apologising.  We finished with "Wonder of You" but I couldn't sustain the last note on the vocal and chickened out to a short "You--" this time.

 

We played much the same 3rd set as the previous week,  but I added "Dance the Night Away" as second number.  We hadn't done this for several weeks and I messed up the solo - I sort of scrunched fingers to get through it;  but made a note to relearn it so the fingers could do the walkin' even if the brain went AWOL.  Actually, I blame a lot of my problems on the night on the cold which, apart from the sore throat,  seemed to be reducing brain activity to an even lower level than normal.  I decided to skip "Trilogy" 'cos the vocal would be too hard going.  Good job I did,  'cos when I switched in strings for "Sweet Caroline" they weren't there - another gremlin had struck!  So we stuck to rockier stuff through right though to the encore with "Born to be Wild".  This swung well enough but wasn't cooking like the previous week;  however, the ending was cleaner.  We were pleased to have got through.  Strangely, the landlord was very pleased and people were pretty complimentary on our show - so we must be covering the mistakes up well.  We got packed up and away fairly quick and I was at home with a cocoa by 12:30am. 

Next day Chris took his amp into Sounds Plus for repair,  but bought an  Ashdown ABM500 head anyway.  He says he'll keep the Harkte as a spare if it can be fixed.  I couldn't replicate the absence of strings problem so it remains 'fault not found';  I wonder if low voltage at this rural venue might have affected the synth?

ReTrio at The Railway Tavern Elmswell

We'd had a few weeks off with various of us on holidays and, unfortunately, I had picked up a cold during the previous week on my family holiday in Penistone.  But it wasn't too bad and I had a plan B to play a few 12 bars if the voice was badly shot. A pleasant evening weatherwise as I drove over to Elmswell to find the pub on School Lane - despite the name not that near the railway?  Chris the Drum was just parking up and Trudy had recovered sufficiently from her back and knee injury to come out without crutches.  The bar lady opened up the front doors for us saying (ominously) they normally keep them closed so the bar staff can see who is coming into the pub - a good view via the side entrance!  Chris the bass arrived about then with bruv-in-law Richard assisting.  I was only using the one Bose for this gig so we soon had the gear in.  Not a lot of room for us all to work on setting up, so Chris suggested he would set up his new (vintage Pearl) kit first and then we could fit in around.  Actually once set up there was a reasonable amount of room for a trio and we soon had it all up and running. 

 

Couple of technical points to note: 

1.  I was now running background music in mono into one side of the 'tape in' on the mixer to avoid losing one side of the stereo which noticeably affected some of the background tracks when we only used one Bose. 
2.  The guitar was panned hard right from a previous gig and by setting it centre it seemed to clear a problem of 'dry joint' fade out I experienced at the last gig. 
3.  I reset levels into the FX unit to avoid that overload distortion also experienced at the previous gig.  

Feedback was quite a problem as I set levels but eventually I got a workable balance between brightness and volume and we ran through a new number:  "When My Little Girl Is Smiling"  (inspired by the Motives and Paul Carrack; a song I was also introducing into the Checkmates show because Raye DuVal had played it in Jimmy Justices' band in 1962)  This song is quite short but neatly tests out harmoniser and strings as well as the band.  It was quite a dry sound in the low ceilinged pub but good enough for rock n roll as they say.

 

 
We had a couple of beers and the boys got changed into our pub rock outfits;  white tees and black waistcoats - me,  I had arrived in my gear rightly fearing a toilet change.  Actually by the time we were ready to go at 8:30pm there were quite few in including several of Chris the drum's mates close to the band, some couples and family groups at tables and a well filled bar area looking into the performance room.  We opened up with the usual three and got used to the sound.  Chris's new kit sounded great - tighter snare and much fuller sound overall than the Hohner he had been using.  I was happy with the guitar and bass sound,  but just needed to fiddle with the vocal sound to avoid a dose of feedback.  While I was at the mixer I upped the echo a little to deal with the dry room sound.  So by the 4th number  I was reasonably happy with the sound and bantering away efficiently.  I announced our debut of "When My Little Girl Is Smiling".  Although it's medium paced I set the vocal on big echo and despite getting some words wrong I thought it sounded good and we got a good round of applause for it.  We continued with another newie: "Groovy Kind of Love"  which has same vocal echo -  and, riskily, a guitar solo with key change in the middle.  We negotiated that alright but again I got some of the words the wrong way round.   OK for a first outing though - I was quite pleased.  Next we did a bit of country:  opening with Chris the drum singing "Crystal Chandeliers".  He did a good job this time and my harmony on the chorus worked well.  We followed with "Ring of Fire" which also went well and got a good round of applause.  Thinking it was a country crowd I called for "Guitars Cadillacs".  This was a mistake because it is sung quite high and I found it hard to get strength into the vocal with the remnants of my cold hanging around.  I decided to cut it short and the guys followed my change nicely.  Next up was "Ferry Cross the Mersey" and that went fine and was a good link into "Eight Days a Week" which the band played well I thought.  We now switched to rock n roll with "Blue Suede,  Runaround Sue and All Shook"  No dancing yet but people seemed to be shuffling in their chairs and were generally enthusiastic.  I finished with "Green Grass" which they sang along with nicely and gave it a good response.  An OK set 1 I thought.

We started set 2 with "Apache" a tad slow in my opinion and I tried to push it along a bit. No room for a 'walk' but the audience seemed to like it.  Next we did the couple of 60s songs: "Tambourine Man Walk In Room".  These always go down well and this gig was no exception.  I think the echo guitar sound sells it.  Then we got Chris to stand up and sing "Delilah". He couldn't get out from behind the kit so had to stand there.  A lot of people in the pub were singing along and he got a particularly great reception from the table of mates in the performance room.  We planned to follow up with "Quando Quando Quando" in the same format and we got underway in the key of G as we had practiced.  Oh dear - a problem?  Chris seemed to be singing in an unrelated key.  We struggled on but never got it quite right so we will have to re-visit that song.  Oddly enough it went down well enough - maybe people assumed it was karaoke performance?  We followed up with "Daydream Believer" which also got them singing along and then "Bad Moon Rising" which I dedicated to a family group who had requested "Another Brick in the Wall".  Sadly I had had to turn this request down,  but I did warn them not to let their children out tonight - it being a full moon and all;  hence "Bad Moon".

The next few songs were standard rock n roll fare and well received - we even got a bit of dancing going.  We concluded that section with "Rock Around The Clock"  This song is becoming a problem.  My dodgy throat was tested by singing this in A.  Now A is a great key for guitar but E would be better vocally.  So I might try it in E next time and hope the solos are playable!  As we finished a slightly ragged version of "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow"  Chris the bass signalled last number.  As soon as I announced it was by Elvis people started to get in the mood,  and as we started they recognised it straight away and sang along lustily - "The Wonder of You".  In fact they were singing so loud I was able to easily chicken out of the last high phrase.    We got a really great reception for this and as the applause continued it gave me time to swap the MP3 player because the one plugged in had just run out of battery!  The background music started up with "Sherrie" from "Seasons of Gold" based on a disco beat;  and a couple of our follower ladies immediately shouted they loved that and started dancing on the table - or was it the seats?  Anyway they were loving the retro sounds and I made a mental note to maybe revive a version of it for the band!

We came back on for set 3.  I cocked up the opener "Great Balls" because I forgot to switch the mics on.  Doh! - we had to start again.  Then we played through our usual set 3 list (skipping "Dance the Night Away").  Good reception with singing and dancing all the way through.  I managed to run "Saturday Night at the Movies into Come on Over to My Place" successfully,  but Chris on the bass is still not sure where the subsequent semitone key change comes so I'll have to watch that.  Despite the dodgy voice we got through "American Trilogy" in good order and got a fantastic reception for it.  Running up to the end of the night I called "Johnny B Goode" as the last number and kept it fairly short so we could do an encore.  And for the encore we did "Born to be Wild".  This went really well,  the band was cooking like an express train (if you pardon my mixed metaphor). I was really pleased with the raunchy guitar sound and when we got to the solo I switched in chorus echo for the high bit just before the drum break - it worked perfectly and hopefully astounded the audience!  Chris the drum still needs to work out his 3 beat break at the end of the solo but we all got back in together and after the final section we improvised a bit of a 'freak out' to say goodnight and finish on a high.  A lot of folks came up at the end with positive comments so we were well pleased as we packed up. Chris was dead chuffed with the Pearl kit which we all thought sounded a lot fuller and better quality than the Hohner. It was a bit misty outside as we loaded;  but it was only a 15 minute drive home.  I got in about 12:40am and I needed some cocoa to calm down after that show!