Lighthouse Gig 31/12/04

New Years Eve Gig - 2004
Ales and Sails Tavern, Port Adelaide

We played again at the Lighthouse Tavern in Port Adelaide. We were invited to play on New Years Eve following our first successful gig at the venue and, I believe, that the band originally booked dropped out several weeks earlier. Years ago, when we first started electrifying our band, it was a goal to play NYE. We finally did it!

The show was listed to start at 9 30 pm. We had set up by 7, and most of the band went to have tea at another nearby pub with some of our supporters (we have a few). When we started playing, there were only half a dozen or so in the band room, but there were around a dozen in the bar. By the end of the first set, numbers had stabilised to between thirty and forty all up, with about two thirds local. Most of them stayed for the whole evening so, considering that there a lot of things on in the local area, the publican was happy.

Of the people we drew in, two in particular stood out. A middle aged couple had had their first night out in fourteen years (kids!) and had been sitting in their car on the nearby wharf when they heard us playing. Wife had urged husband to come and check it out, and they stayed all night. There were several locals also who left to go to parties etc after the first set, but returned for the later part of the evening.

As gigs go, it wasn’t our best. Nor was it our worst. We played four sets with a lengthy encore. First set was very nervous. Second set we got into a rhythm. Third set was marked by the clock ticking over to the new year. We had been practicing Auld Lang Sine as a band for that moment, but nancy started singing it before anyone was ready. She was singing in a strange key which was not true to pitch. It took us guitars and bass about a verse to work this out. We then stopped, allowing her and the drums to continue. It sounded very scottish. We are sure that we would have pulled tears if we had been able to build the song as we had practiced. Still, we pulled it off.

The locals enjoyed our music, and most of our regulars returned for our next gig two weeks later at the Glanville Wharf Hotel. So we must have done alright. Never-the-less, the band was not too happy with the show. We made lots of silly errors and it didn’t sound as good as it had in the past. We had managed to cover our mistakes so most of the audience didn’t even know of them, but we did.

I taped the show, as I sometimes do. Listening to it later it was clear that we sounded nervous. This backed up what we had thought the case while on stage. Had a word to Steve to not worry about the audience, playing well is all that we can really give them so concentrate on that. In retrospect, the fact he had a new amplifier that he was still working out probably had something to do with his tentativeness.

Our stage presence wasn’t that good, long gaps between songs, every song starting with someone saying, “are we ready?” Half the songs preceded by someone ‘practicing’ a little riff, tuning and technical changes being made at full volume in a clash with the piped music between sets. Luckily, all easily correctable.

But what was really good was that none of the mistakes weren’t easily fixable, it was mainly a case of relaxing a bit on stage.