For details on our next gig, at the Glynde Hotel, click here.
The Negotiators just played a 60th at The Lockleys Hotel for a long time follower of the band, Loretta. She had a ball through the evening, was nice to be able to give her back something for the loyalty she has given us. She had something like 120 people there, aged from (say) five to somewhere in the seventies - the bulk being in the later middle age bracket. Didn't lose many til after the third set, and still had around thirty left at the end, so we held the crowd fairly well. Apparently the exodus occurred shortly after a fight, which none of us in the band had been aware of until well after the gig.
Generally we did pretty good. Tempos were a bit quick in the first set, but that can be expected and it wasn't so fast that it sounded forced. After that it settled down well. Had around 15 min per break, with a last set that went for an hour and twenty.
The Cort guitar played well, was able to distinguish its various sounds quite well. Strangely for me, I played with the pick up selection in either the centre or the setting next closest to the bridge. Thus I was playing somewhere between a acoustic and a humbucker fuzz sound for most of the evening. I even managed to pull a couple of 'effects' out of the guitar, can't remember which song but I noticed that Chris heard and appreciated whatever it was I had done (I think it was in the Kinks 'you really got me', making the key chords 'warp'). Apparently we sounded good out the front in terms of mix, which is pretty fortunate as the rhythm section only heard Steve on the other side of the stage in patches.
Chris and Barry did really well, keeping up with what was for us other three a fairly well worn series of songs. At least half of them were open to experimentation on my part, so it was a fairly fun time that went quickly.
We had the privelege of Terry being there on the mixing desk through the evening. He pulled a bit of the bass out of Nancy's voice, which created some 'space' between it and Steve's guitar. This led to greater clarity of sound. He also pumped the keyboard when it took a lead role, and joined in the backing vocals as appropriate. What the audience would have most noticed was the lighting. Terry has continued to expand his lighting desk and capabilities, with a couple of mirror balls and set of floods on top of the two series of coloured lights he already had. My favorite light was the fire red flooklight on a mirror ball near the wall at ground level by the drums. Out of the corner of the eye it looked like the room was on fire, it was a very rich ruby coloured light.
We had Loretta's son, Peter, get up and sing six songs with us. These songs were his choice, and we have had three rehersal sessions with him over the past month. They were distinctly punk sounding - couple Green Day songs, Blink 182, Johnny Eat World, Living End and Oasis. During 'Holiday' we had someone come flying into the the stage and knock over stands, lights etc - she even managed to break a microphone stand when she landed on it. Quite a bit of chaos which we managed to keep performing though without missing a beat. Pretty cool for a punk song!
Probably the weakest side of the night's performance was the vocals. Nancy did great, as always, and many came up and complimented her at various stages in the evening. In the last set, however, her voice broke a couple of times which is unusual. My voice went in and out of being vocal and in tune. I think that's because I hadn't been too well the previous week. Steve seemed to be out of key several times, which was magnified by his putting his voice right up to his mike as though he were a lead singer.
Barry pulled it off. Nervous as hell to start with, I think his country origins show in the way he uses the bass to basically accompany the rest of the music. This is a different approach to the driving bass associated with modern rock. The songs where he did this, he did it well. Will be interesting to watch as his confidence develops.
The bar staff seemed to be impressed, by what I overheard of them talking as we were packing up (which task we will need to get more proficient at), and I believe we left several cards with them.
That's enough for now. See you at the Glynde on May 13.
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