Sailmaster Gig

North Haven, SA - November 27, 2004.

You could be forgiven if you thought Odd Sox plays sea shanties, judging by the nautical nature of the venues we’ve played at recently! This hotel is a large modern venue, built overlooking one of Adelaide’s marinas. We played at floor level in the main bar room, with the dining area visible about fifty metres away, the boats at the moorings in sight beyond the outside decking, on which were outdoor tables and chairs. The social club had their christmas show and booked us as their preference. The publican here apparently doesn’t like bands so I doubt we’ll play here again. Never-the-less, not a bad evening.

The room was big, long, and carpeted. This made the sound different yet again. Though licensed to take over 500 people, I reckon we were playing to around fifty at any given time. A lot of young ones went and played pokies awhile, but they hung around. So in numbers, not too bad.

We only got to play for three hours, which made it relatively light work as gigs go. We only played three sets (the middle one being about an hour long).

First set was a bit stilted, I realised I had no foldback on our side of the stage. At the end of it Sox and Steve were shaken, thought it had been terrible. I think that’s because they normally are next to each other on stage and this time I was next to the drums and Steve on the wing, they couldn’t hear each other. When I think of some gigs I’ve played, I’m personally always thankful when I can hear ANYONE at all, myself especially!

Anyway, the second set started in the same hesitant vein, but picked up massively after High Voltage (which we pulled off as well as we ever have). The audience was visibly responding to the back of the dining room. This was a very long set, and some of the band were feeling tired by the end of it. Nancy threw in (unexpectedly) a medley of old fifties numbers at the end, audience loved it but rattled some of the band. Set us up okay for the last set.

Before we knew it, time to pack up and leave. For once (the only time?) we actually finished at the advised time and were home around 1am. This would be one of the easiest shows we’ve done in ages.

From my perspective it was good fun, not a huge crowd but big enough to get a sense of audience appreciation. Dancers were up for most of the second and third sets. I certainly enjoyed being near the drums (but I think that will be the last time for a while). I was experimenting a bit with different styles of rhythm chops, as always trying to think of ways to emphasise the music in a way that fits with our 4/4 style and doesn’t leave me or the listener either confused or bored. There certainly is more to rhythm guitar than first meets the ear!