Glanville Wharf, 3 June 05

This Friday night gig was a ripper. The audience came from about five separate social cirles, plus those who came because of their link to the pub rather than us. Had between 30 and 50 people through the evening, with the peak being the middle two of four sets.

Although it’d been a while since we played, a few things are memorable.

Firstly - The audience, besides being decent in size and demeanor, was noteable because it wasn’t dominated by any one particular social group. There was a nice mix which we knew had come to see us by various paths and connections. To be there of an evening, however, one would have noticed the 'diverse homogeneity' of our audience. Their age was thirty plus, the males were not somewhere on this side of the tracks, the women were all dressed up. They all seemed comfortable in each other’s presence. The only one who looked like he didn’t was the man from cambridge.

Secondly - Steve came into his own as a lead guitarist. The band as a whole was a bit disjointed in the first set, competent but not flowing. We were all aware of it, and those who've seen us before would have, but not too many of these there in the first set. We knew that things were only going to get better off an already solid base. The second and third brackets were amongst the best we’ve played.

And this was due in no small part to Steve’s work on the guitar. His leads were on time and in tune, and busy enough figurations that were at the same time solid because simple worked their way into much of what we played. I’ve always felt rock music needs a driving guitar, and we most certainly had it. Best of all, I think Steve was aware of the fact that he had passed a bend in the road.

Thirdly – we had a few very cool ‘dance’ moments from the audience. We had people up dancing from the second or third song, for a start, which is always good. We had the floor full of dancers at some point in each of the sets, and solidly so through the third and fourth. It was great when we played ‘500 Miles’ towards the end of the third. This always draws out the scots and party animals, and they tend to stalk stomp and sing their way through the song with the band. The display was exhuberantly passionate on this night – great fun.

The most memorable moment, however, was during ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, at the end of the Third. Steve was grinding away on lead, Nancy was totally lost in the hypnotic rhythms of the vocal refrains. And in the audience was one of our Stompers, a fellow who’d only been up for ‘500 Miles’ to this point. It was like the dance demon got him, and he started driving himself in a dhervish jumping light footed dance. There was energetic feedback between him and the band, one of those alchemical moments when the dancer drives the band drives the dancer and everyone has their eyes shut. I didn’t, and could watch what was happening and ride the wave that the moment graced us with.