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O
C T O B E R 2 0 0 5
Sunday
9th October 05
John
Lennon, 9th
October 1940 - 8th December 1980
Monday
17th October 05
For the
sake of the archive:
BBC
Radio
One - Colin & Edith
This
afternoon they were doing their daily
competition where 2 fans represent their favourite
band and answer questions on them. The Beatles fan
has won for the past week and stays on. Colin
Murray was talking about Liverpool and asking the
guy if he'd been to the convention, the guy had
once and enjoyed it. Then Colin said "I've
seen The Cavern Beatles a fair few times and
they're really good"
Thursday
27th October 05
City
Hall, Hull.
Three of
us had arranged to rendezvous with Dirk at Birch
Services on the M62 at 3.30. At 3.29, we pulled
into the car park. Dirk was on the phone saying
that the traffic was horrendous and he would be a
while longer. At 4.15 we met up in the car park, but
Derek had some news. Acky had just phoned him to
say that he had left his bass in his front garden, so
he put it in his house for him so it wouldn't get
nicked. Of course, that's exactly what you
should do with a 1964 Hofner Violin....leave it in
your garden for some bastard to pinch.
So what are we going to do? Spectrum carry the
Rickenbacker bass, so that is already at the gig, but
Dirk doesn't want to play the whole show on the
4001. Apart from looking really odd for what we
do, it is a totally different guitar, and when you've
played the same bass for 15 years... no one really
wants to change. It will take 3 hours to go back
for it and get back to Birch, which would leave us no
time to get to the show. Acky saved the day and
drove down to Birch with it, making the journey in an
hour and twenty minutes.
We pulled out of the services at 5.45, bass on the
parcel shelf and heading east at full tilt. We
are on stage at 7.30 and we have 90 miles to cover in
rush hour traffic.
We arrive at the venue and the audience is already
filing into the auditorium...this is cutting it
close. A sound check is obviously out of the
question, but Ade and Dave have been alerted and they
have prepared everything. The stage has no tabs,
so we can't even have the luxury of checking
everything from behind the curtains. It was all
a bit "skin of yer teeth" stuff, but at
7.30, we made it to the stage.
I think we all enjoyed the first half, the audience
were fab and their response was so warm, we forgot all
about the stresses of the last few hours.
Coming out for "round two", things went a
little awry. Dirk counted in "Twist &
Shout".... but only I heard
him. I stopped after 3 notes, and looked
at Dirk with a "what the fuck?" expression
in my eye. Dirk re-counted....and STILL only I
heard him...so we were both playing, and looking at
each other. After 8 bars... Roy
thought..."oh yeah...think I'll start playing
too"..... little trio thang goin' on here!!
Out of nowhere, Eddie comes in.... but not at
the same place me and Dirk are...we are totally
confused.... this is the worst fuck up, I think
we have ever made ( and we've made a few ). By
the second line of the verse, we have sorted ourselves
out and got it together....but it was a shaky moment.
The post mortem revealed it was actually MY
fault! In a moment of madness, for
authenticities sake, I had always suggested the count
be done "off mic". Forgetting of
course, that this would require the band to pay
attention!
But the worst thing about this job...... is when
you're hungry...... so often, Ginsters, is
the only thing you can find to eat. And
that's a bit depressing!!
They are soggy, greasy, and they taste quite
cardboardy with a sprinkling of pepper.. They
probably contain more unhealthy unthinkables than
would be thinkable to imagine. They stink the car out
and the smell seems to linger on your clothes for
hours
.
But they are HOT!..... so we all had
one. Dirk had
"2" *insert raised eyebrows*
"See yer tomorrow..... don't forget
your bass!
( I wouldn't let it
lie!! ;)
)"
Friday
28th October 05
Municipal
Hall, Colne.
What am I
going to post about this show? The truth of
course...would you really expect anything else?
At the sound check, I broke a string on the Telecaster
with my first twang and decided to change the whole
set as they were a bit manky. So I ended up not
participating in the sound check and sat in the
dressing room with a pair of wire cutters and a prawn
sandwich.
This is a great venue and home of the Colne Jazz
Festival. It is obvious from the wonderful
photos all over the place, that they love their music
here. On arrival, I was a little dismayed to see
the "table and chairs" layout. It must
be human nature....point a load of people in one
direction (ie the stage), and they will all sit
quietly and concentrate on what is going on.
Place them facing each other at tables and...well..they
are gonna have a little chat. Our show works
much better with the former format, as there are quite
a few quieter numbers in the set. During songs
like "And I Love Her", we could quite
clearly hear conversations from the audience, from the
stage. It's a bit off-putting. Having said
that, we went down really well and the applause was
fantastic.
In the second half when Eddie introduced "In My
Life" for his solo spot, someone shouted
out.."Play one we know" I hope it
doesn't appear like I'm being too precious, but it
really pissed me off. When Eddie plays this
song, it really moves me. I am a big Beatle fan,
and feel that Eddies talent, deserves a lot more
respect than some, unfunny, talentless bastard
shouting that out. Fortunately, the rest of the
audience did seem to appreciate Eddie's rendition and
he received a thunderous ovation at the end.
By the encores, we were rockin' and most of the
downstairs were on their feet, freaking out. It
was good gig.
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