Buff's Black Diamond Bar - 13 Jan '06

The Negotiators played at Buff’s Bar again last night, Friday the 13th. Just after a full moon. With a drummer who we’ve never played with before as a band. On the same night as the Schutzenfest (a big Adelaide german culture, sporting (shooting) and drinking festival, very popular). Not a big crowd. Not a big pub. Great show.

Played with Chris on drums, filling in for Sox who is incapacitated for a while. Steve knew Chris. He and Nancy jammed a bit with Chris on Monday evening. Terry and I first met him 45 min before we started. Nice guy. He did pretty good, it being a four set four hour gig with a few songs he’d never heard before. Engaged well with the music and the band on stage.

Playing with different musicians is a good experience for me and, I presume, all musicians and singers. It forces a degree of reflexivity on the playing, and exposes the articulation of a band’s groupthink – something of which we’re normally unaware. Thus, a level of sponteneity. And that is further encouraged (as long as the chemistry is there, which it was last night) by a level of reduced expectation – an expectation and, sometimes, an embracing of difference and error.

Not a large crowd, maybe a dozen or so locals for most of the evening (occasionally more), and half a dozen or so of our faithful few – who would probably have a very interesting perspective on sounds, faults and extensions every gig, every musician. I know that there were several locals and a few travellers who came in and/or stayed significantly longer than usual. I think Friday nights aren’t the biggest times of the week at Buff’s (or, the Port in general), especially with a start time of 7.30 pm. I haven’t heard one person complain, however, about the audience or its size. For once, the truth of its irrelevancy to how much one can derive from a gig (as opposed to what can be derived) has been demonstrated.

Tempos were mixed up a bit, need to learn a vocabulary (‘very slow’ through ‘moderate’ to ‘very quick’) so that we can set it up quickly with new musicians. Also for ourselves! A few songs were a touch slow. That’s better than too quick. Forces one to think about the spaces and allows the body a chance to process and play those thougts. Then again, I always was a cereberal muse.

The performance highlight was, I think, the second and first bit of the third sets. Nancy was really pumping along and right in the middle of the music, and the band played confident platform of music beneath her. Lead played around the voice, rather than compete with it. Favorite songs of the evening for me included, ‘Bobby McGee’ (wild and fast finale to the vocal ‘out’ section where Janis/Nancy is really belting it out, a modification of Pete’s Gaslight acceleration (see posting for Jan 5 gig)), Eagle Rock (nailed it), I’ll make you happy (in your face rendition, Chris accented the beat pattern similar to the vocal); Ring of Fire (got the harmonies right in the backup) and Shout (rocking along, co-ordinated, high energy). There were no real crashes except for maybe ‘Out of the Blue’ (we’d all forgotten the pattern – but faked it enough to finish). Levels were good until somewhere in the third set when I think Steve turned up (according to a bloke in the audience who’d been there from start of second set and ‘complained’ about having ‘lost the vocal in the music’).

For the record, the Gaslight grapevine had produced at least one other drummer willing and able to gig with us, Steve called Chris half an hour before we would have made the call. Also, my guitar was ‘serviced’, but still managed to break a string. Hmmmm….

Future gigs include Buff’s Bar on Feb 25 plus another Sunday Arvo (3 – 7 pm) which will be at fairly short notice as we’re expecting a newspaper write up soon. Feb 11 at The Glynde from 9 pm. But these will be confirmed later …