This evening started off well. I’m driving, I’ve taken the parcel shelf out of the car and am off to pick up Mark and Sid from Mark's house. I get lost. I’ve been there a time or two, it’s just round the corner from my house, but I still manage to miss the turning! I arrive and collect the two of them who look at my car with some cynicism and ask if I’m sure everything will fit. ‘It’ll be fine’ I reassure them. This proves to be true, though Sid’s guitar case is a fraction too long to fit in the boot so we have to put one of the seats in the back down. Not a problem on the way there, but when we add my 6’5” boyfriend to the load on the way back it could be interesting…. I don’t mention this at the time though, thinking it’s a surprise best saved for later!
We arrive at the 'Claremont Hotel' in West Byfleet about 15 minutes late, due partly to the time taken to load the car, and partly to the fact that I refused to believe my 'Tom-Tom' and went the wrong way. Nearly twice. Women always know best! It’s very quiet when we arrive, and we are temporarily concerned that we may be playing to the (mighty friendly) landlady, the other band, and my boyfriend, who is already there and ready to break exciting news. His sister and her boyfriend are coming, and his Mum. Hmm now I’m a little nervous, but at least that’s three members of an audience! A couple more and we’ll have a crowd! Sid and Ben head off to play pool, Mark heads for the kebab shop and Neil watches in amusement!
The other band show up, and I’m sure I recognise one of them. I am temporarily convinced that their drummer is actually the guitarist from the band 'Concept', who is supposed to be studying Spanish guitar in Spain no less. I get a little excited at the prospect of serious gossip, before someone says they’re from the same university as me. That’ll be it then, they’re on my course. It’s a small world!! They do their soundcheck and it’s pretty good, I’m looking forward to their set. We head up for our soundcheck as more people arrive to see us, Ian of 'Good Intentions' turns up, which is really appreciated. After a bit of tweaking, with plenty of audience participation - ‘turn the bass down, turn the guitar up, turn the guitar down’ (we discovered Sid doesn’t understand the concept of ‘a little bit’) and we’re ready to go. A quick trip to the bar, greeting of friends and some panicked repairing of my shoulder rest with a screwdriver and some gaffer tape and we’re sorted.
The set goes well, with no major hitches, in spite of the gremlins that become evident later. Evidently Sid’s faces kept them hiding behind the skirting board for our set! I keep getting distracted by the TV in the corner, and several times realise that although I’m singing I have absolutely no idea where in the song I am, what I have been singing and what comes next. It’s not just food, it’s M&S food, and it looks sooo good up there on the TV, even with the sound turned down. I’m wishing I’d had a bigger supper and trying to remember that nowhere in any of Sid’s lyrics does the phrase ‘white chocolate soufflé’ appear. Darn it! ‘Depression is a wah wah wah’ ('....Young Persons Art Form' ! Tut tut ! - Ed) goes down well, as usual, with my repetitive violin lines leaving plenty of time for advert watching, and we’re done. We head back to our seats to watch 'The Nominees'. At this point, rather embarrassingly, the reasonably sized audience that had amassed to watch us disappear. All of them. Ah well, we were there to play, not supply the audience, but it’s a shame that there aren’t more people there to watch 'The Nominees'.
The lead singer does a bit of solo stuff first, just him and his guitar, which is OK, but I definitely preferred the full band stuff. Their set starts well, with the song they played in the soundcheck which I really quite liked. Then disaster strikes. The singer/guitarist breaks a string. No problem though, he’s got a spare. He grabs the spare and disappears. The band strike up ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ to entertain us while we wait. None of them are singing. Sid twists Ben’s very very rubbery arm and he leaps to his feet and heads to the free mic. He sings along, rather well really, but don’t tell him I said that! When he runs out of words he knows he reluctantly heads back to his seat. The guitarist still hasn’t reappeared. Apparently the guitar isn’t in tune. The obvious answer would be to tune it, but I wasn’t there, so it may have been more complicated than that…. The band are still waiting and starting to look desperate. They’ve really done ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ to death. They look at each other and start in on ‘Johnny B Goode’. I suspect there may have been a spring of some sort in Ben’s seat, because I didn’t actually see him go past me he moved so quickly! He starts singing again and the band look truly grateful. Then he starts touching the pocket with the harmonica in it, and looking suspiciously at the bassist to try and work out the key. It’s A. Ben’s smiling and cracks out what can only be described as a storming harmonica solo. The rest of the band are smiling now too! There is a slightly sticky moment when Ben is still singing and the lead guitarist is trying to play a solo at the same time, but the singer/guitarist has now borrowed Sid’s spare guitar and is looking ready to rejoin the band. They come to a mighty tidy finish and Ben resumes his seat, with cries of ‘is your middle name ‘saviour?’’ coming from the band. We tell Ben he’s rubbish to make sure his head doesn’t get too big!
Sadly at this point the gremlins have still not been frightened back behind the skirting, and the power cable to the lead guitarist’s amp decides it doesn’t like staying where it should. They carry on regardless, to rapidly increasing faces (and sounds) of frustration from the guitarist. No one likes gremlins, they should stay in the skirting, but it happens to us all sometimes and 'The Nominees' coped admirably. Sid’s obviously started making faces again, and they finally get through their last couple of songs without any hitches.
The only thing left to do is get home. We head back to my car and George explains that he’s sitting in the front. Sid and Mark look sceptically at the space left in the back seat once the car’s loaded. To be fair there isn’t very much. I think it’s funny, George thinks it’s funny. Sid and Mark? Not so amused methinks!! They manage to squish in as George directs me home. He gives up with directions such as ‘left’ and ‘right’ pretty quickly and resorts to just flicking my indicators for me, so I know which way to go. It worked, and I deliver Mark and Sid to their houses before we head home. 'Brassneck', once again tired and happy.
Kat
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