Last Gig at Glanville? (26 Aug 2005)

The publican at the Glanville has sold his license and new owner was soon to take over. All future bookings at this pub were off. We didn't know what the new owners planned. This was thus possibly our last gig at this place, which we have played good gigs at for awhile now. On the trip there, this realisation made the coming night all the more 'real', the vibe was good.

Only about three people in our part of the pub when we started at 8.30, sox's friends I believe. Maybe about a dozen at the end of the first set. Double that at the end of the second. Peaked at thirty to forty in the third set. Still over twenty when we finished at 20 to 1. Only familiar faces were Sox's friends (first time these women had come, I think) and, after nine, the hard core of our Peterborough comrades (Jo and her manfriend and Natalie). Everyone else who was there wondered in. Of those that wandered in, all stayed at least a while.

We had a ball! Steve is relaxing more often into his lead guitar role, and when it happens it's pretty good. Sox just develops week after week still, or so it seems, always solid and pushing his boundries. Terry is always inventing further and playing games in the bass. Nancy continues to develop a capacity to give herself to the music. All came to the fore on this night.

And me? Working in large variations to the role and sound I assign my guitar, very little lead but now actively searching out patterns in the music deeper and less cereberal than the beat and the count. Hopefully never losing these in the process, of course.

In other words, it got a bit psychedelic at times on stage, and the sound we generated was hypnotic music on occasion. I haven't before heard this happen for more than mere moments (with the memorable exception of one of our Gaslight shows) in a show. It was what I always used to search for when we was into seeing bands a lot, and here we managed to play it for extended periods to a small and appreciative audience in a pub that we always seem to sound alright at anyway! Magic, in a very real sense. And none of the band even frowned when I described it as psychedelic at times. I think we all knew that we sounded good - particularly in the second set.

We introduced quite a few new songs also - The Wild One, She's so Fine, Shout, Summer of '69, Waterloo, and Speak to the Sky, and all of the previous six we've learnt (first time at the Glanville) Good Golly Miss Molly, Travelling Band, Oobey Doobey, Da Doo Ron Ron, Rock'n'Roll is King, and On the Prowl. The newest ones fell a bit flat, but that was mainly that it still felt all a bit discrete and mechanical. This is common until we 'internalise' a piece - and that is as much a function of time as practice.

It was a wonderful gig at the Glanville, a great Requiem.

On September 10 we play at The Glynde Hotel, our first foray into the NorthEast since playing at Athelston Footy Club a couple years ago (as 'Requiem').

The name seems to have taken, by the way.