Cumberland Hotel, Glanville, 20/2/05

On Sunday afternoon Requiem played our first gig at the Cumberland Hotel, just down the road from the Glanville Wharf (where we played the previous Sunday). Good gig. It was several weeks ago that Steve dropped into the pub and organised the booking. At the time I was really glad about it (I still am), as I remembered the pub fondly from a few years ago as a friendly and comfortable pub (it still is). The woman who handled the booking has maybe either heard us, or heard of us, because she booked us for Easter Sunday also. I suspect that will be a good show.

Terry and Steve were there first and had done the bulk of the setting up by the time Nancy and I arrived around 3 pm. When we arrived the barmaid welcomed us with a beaming smile, very nice. Sox was running a bit late for him, but we were all ready to go by 4 pm. Unlike the previous week, we were all fighting fit.

With ten minutes to go we were asked to start with a quieter set as there was still quite a few punters having a bet on the TAB in the bar and they’d want to hear the final races. This was no problem for us, but did entail reorganising the set lists, which Nancy had spent quite a while putting together. She’d intended to start with a bang, so there was a bit of shuffling around to do. If you don’t know, creating set lists is an artform in itself.

We played four sets, progressively heavier as the evening drew in. We kept the breaks to 15 min (except the last, 20 min). No complaints from anyone there. It was almost dark when we finished.

The pub seemed to draw a fair Sunday crowd under its own steam. We had forty to fifty people there throughout the show, with up to ten of them dancing on several occasions. I think we would have had a few more there except that Port Adelaide was playing footy that evening against the other local team in the national league (Adelaide Crows). The song that drew the most dancers was ‘Midnight Special’. There was some really good rock’n’roll dancing from the older members in the audience, the most shining example of the day when a barmaid danced with the publican (?) and the others left the dance floor to them for a song they were that good. I applauded them at the end of that song (can’t recall which song it was). Audience sang along most lustily to Mustang Sally and Can’t Always Get What You Want. My favorite audience participation song was ‘500 Miles’, as we had a ‘scottish circle’ kicking up their heels on the floor as we played.

The Requiem crew this show included a handful of Steve’s friends, Tracy & Wayne, and Jo with two of her cowgirl friends. As always, wonderful to see them, and even more wonderful to see them getting right into the music (rather than just turning up out of politeness). Tracy and Wayne brought our grandkids, Jack brought his toy guitar and spent about a set imitating and studying the poses of guitarists. Very cute. Blake in his pram just burbled away for the couple sets they were there. Beautiful to see Nancy dancing with Blake in one of the breaks. Great family show.

As for our performance, not as tight as the week before but a better gig all round. Maybe half a dozen times we screwed up, but each time managed to pick up the pieces and improvise our way back on track. Not a problem, audience enjoyed. The grandest screw up was one of our originals (Internet Blues), which we hadn’t played together for half a year. The band started playing in different keys, and Nancy started singing in yet a third key. Sounded very weird but coordinated by half way through first verse. What capped it off was that Nancy was able to repeat the key changes in the remaining verses, thus making a whole new way to play the piece. I think we all actually liked the way it turned out.

Only technical problems were that the venue had a vibrating floor, making the bottom end of our sound quite dominant, and that I broke a string during ‘Rising Sun.’. I kept up the vocals, and changed guitars between verses. Quite professional.

We next play on Friday next at our old haunt, the Gaslight Tavern in Brompton. Looking forward to it …