Cumberland Gig - 28 May 2006

The Negotiators played the Cumby (Glanville) on Sunday evening. The show kicked off at 3:30 pm, and we were finished at around 7:40. Played 4 sets, no encores as we had already gone over time. Audience was pretty good, in terms of both numbers and appreciation. This was the second show with the new lineup (Sox on drums, Barry on Bass), and again Terry provided his technical wizardry to the sound and light. Band was satisfied, publican was happy, audience were rapt.

Nancy and I got to the pub just after 1:30. Sox and Steve had already brought in all the gear from Steve's van and set up the drums. We all got busy, and everything was hooked up in time for a sound check at around 3 pm. Terry and I then continued on for another 10 minutes to sort out the rear series of foldback speakers, as there were a few problems. These problems continued into the first set, but it wasn't terminal and the audience wouldn't have known if we hadn't let them know. The sound out the front, apparently, was good.

Lighting was pretty flash. Terry set up his full kit, ground and ceiling mirror balls, 2 sets of floor spots (one of three sets of three lights, the other of four individual lights) and two high mounted flood lights. In the compressed space at the Cumby, it was a pretty special light show. With the sophistication allowed by his sequencer and light desk, he was able to construct a 'plot line' for the lights that complemented the flow of the music. From my position on stage, it certainly added to the sensory experience of the music.

The audience was a classic Port Adelaide crowd, keen on good music and beer, and if they like you they will stay. At around 2:30 there were three people in the bar area that we could see. Sox was a bit stressed. He needn't have been. We had over two dozen by the time we started, and three dozen by the end of the first set. These numbers stayed roughly the same then until part way through the final set, when the number had dropped back to around 30. A fair few of them had seen our name in the Messenger Press gig guide (local paper) and came specifically because it was we who were playing. We picked up a few new fans on the day, and I expect we'll see them in the next month or two. Out of interest, we probably have two females for every three males in our audience, not bad for a pub band.

For a report of the previous Negotiators gig at the Cumby, click here.

Musically speaking, we weren't as good as we had been at the Glynde (For a report of our most recent Glynde gig, click here). This was partly expainable by the fact that it was an afternoon/evening gig (you just don't get the same 'vibe' as you do on a Saturday night).

There were other factors though. For example, I was dog tired and Sox's arm was fairly fatigued, leading to the occasional lapse of concentration on my part, and the dropping of the beat a couple times on his. To both of our credit, however, we recognised the failings as they happened and rapidly corrected.Another problem was that we weren't able to hear each other as we had at the Glynde. That was partly because we didn't have the luxury of setting up on the walls to each side of a corner, with all our amps and speakers pointing at each other. Also, I had to have my amp set up in front of Barry which means he only heard a little 'splash' of sound out the rear, and Sox and Steve couldn't hear me at all (rhthym guitar doesn't project out the sides of an amp at all, which is the part of the amp that was 'pointing' towards them). I can set up a small 'monitor' amp for Sox to hear if that would assist, but it still doesn't address the underlying issue. I will have to think about it a bit. It is important because, while I was trying to play to their instuments, they couldn't reciprocate. This leads to issues affecting the sponteneity and improvisatory potential of the combo.

Steve (lead) reckoned he couldn't hear me (rhythm), and only partly hear Barry (Bass). Same with Sox (drums). Barry could hardly hear myself or Steve. I could hear everyone (although sometimes its more of 'sensing' rather than 'hearing' - stage sound can sometimes bear little example to that at front of house). Everyone could hear Nancy (lead vocal) and Sox. You can imagine the potential for disaster that loomed through the gig in the background.

More than once we fell off the cart as a band. That isn't too surprising considering the limitations described in the previous paragraph. What was very good was the way we always covered the glitch, and several times used it as a starting point of an improvisatory coming back to the music that expressed wholly new sounds (being improvisatory). This was great fun, and entranced several in the audience who are familiar with our standard fare as they joined us on the adventure. A few (they know who they are) have heard us enough to experience the evolution as it occurs. Must find out what they think ...

The other issue which we need to deal with is tempo. I felt we were going too fast, although audience didn't seem to mind. If there's one thing we can work on that will bring results, it will be this. Also, need to work on interaction of vocal and backing singing - one of us sounded too loud (at least, through the foldback) for us to record it.Barry seemed a bit nervous musically, not as 'out there' as he seemed to have been heading at the Glynde. Again, something that will only be resolved with regular band rehersal and individual work (listening to music and hearing what others do, as well as personal practice). He's keen enough, however, that the workload won't be beyond him. Flying hours.

Okay. I've got all that off my chest.

I enjoyed the gig. My Cort guitar continues to show new layers of sound to me as learn more of it in action. I seem to rarely use the bottom two pick up selection positions, mainly the middle one, and to play about half of what I do on the upper pickups with the overdrive peddle on. I like the thick, but distinct, sounds I get can out of my axe, and the fact that between strong chords it can still produce sweet individual passing notes.

Here's what we did right. First set was excellent, disciplined and tight (because we knew we had to be). We also all played at relatively lower levels than we have recently, and it led to a sound in which all of the instruments were filling separate spaces. Thus, there was a new 'level' available with which to communicate musical expressions. The diversity of music was great. Nancy rocked. It got pretty intense at times. The audience was noisily appreciative. Not a lot of dancing - but pretty wild rock n roll when it was. Our breaks were disciplined and shorter than almost all bands I know. The lighting show was harmonising with the sound show. The set lists fitted together well. There was good moments of chaotic flow on stage, and I knew we had taken the audience with us on our reverie.

What more can I say?

We get a cameo in the near future at The Hackney Hotel, and our next public gig is at The Gaslight on July 15 (Saturday). For a report on our most recent Gaslight gig, click here.

More details when they come to hand.

Glynde Gig - 13 May '06

The Negotiators rocked the Glynde last night before a relatively small but appreciative audience. Started at 9.00 pm, finished the encore around 1.15 am. Over fifty songs spread over four sets with three 15 minute breaks. The new line up finally got it together, and it worked well!

As foreshadowed in my last post, the new Negotiators line up debuted publicly last night. Sox made it through without any noticeable slackening due to injury, Barry held it together well, his bass finding its own rock idiom to work with. Terry also came along, and ran the mixing desk and light show.

Stage set up was the new improved version, with Mark and Barry on stage left, Steve on stage right. Continuing the evolution of our Glynde setup, we had less of a footprint on floorspace with the new lineup, fitting comfortable into what had once seemed a very tight space, with more gear! We had Terry projecting out further along the wall at stage right, with a light desk and mixing desk surrounding him. Tech heaven!

Sound quality on stage was excellent, with full clarity of all parts from all points on stage. This was achieved as a result of a combination of careful balancing of sound (amps and foldback) and stage set up (with all amps pointing across front stage centre due the fact we had set up on both walls of a corner with Sox at the apex). Apparently the sound in the audience was “as good if not better” than it’s ever been according to a long term follower or two. I think having Terry advise on and tweaking the sound through the evening helped with clarity also.

Probably the most we had in the audience at one time was between two dozen and thirty people (in the second set). Around sixteen people whom we knew came in three distinct groups, the earliest any of these left was at the end of the third set. For the second set we were graced with the presence of around eight young women dressed to the max for a night out after their Glynde sojourn. They loved to boogie, if they weren’t off elsewhere I reckon they would have stayed. In the third set had a group of two couples of well dressed uni student types, initially hesitant but had them all toe tapping within a song of settling down. Again, I don’t think they would have stayed (they had in fact popped in and out of the pub earlier) if they hadn’t been drawn in by the music (‘Satisfaction’, if I remember right).

There were perhaps a half dozen locals left at stumps, two sheilas that ate up each song from when they arrived during the third, several men who were individually seated and a quiet addition, and a couple who had been there since the second set and having a great time. ‘Tup’, the male half, was effusive in his compliments at the end of the night, and had partied to the music throughout. He even drew out ‘the rhthym guitarist’ (me) for particular comment later – a rare thing.

The Cort guitar continued to reveal its worth. I played maybe two thirds of the show with the pick up selection in middle position, the remainder split evenly with the selector in either top two or second bottom setting. It tended to cut through the other guitar/keyboard without overwhelming or covering them. This was good, as it allowed me to monitor and adjust what I was doing with the rhythm scape between different parts of various songs. As I am quite familiar with all that we played, I was able to concentrate a fair bit on tying up the other instruments with my guitar, as well as interacting musically with them. I’ve been bored before by other rhythm guitarists who seem to only know one way of strumming and one pattern of beats, so it was nice to add a layer of steady variation underneath the more prominent instruments and vocals. I think Tup’s comment reflected this.

Sox reminded us that he’s a good drummer with a solid performance. Although he says he ‘lost it’ a couple of times, he obvulessly hasn’t forgotten how to get back on the horse quickly because the band never lost the beat or slid into a mess of searching for sounds. He’s a very solid drummer, puts a lot of thought and concentration into what he does. Too much sometimes, as his eyes are closed and he’s off with the muse and there’s no way of getting his attention short of shouting at him (and who’d want to break that reverie?). He runs quite a rack of cymbals, which allow him a large dynamic range and numerous effects (a percussive equivalent, perhaps, of what I search for in the beat of the guitar part). It was great to play with Chris on drums, but it's very cool to have Sox back!

Steve’s leads were crisper than they’ve been before, and he seemed to have pushed his technical limits out sufficient so that nothing sounded forced. Again, this impacted upon what I do as I could concentrate more on backing him and emphasising elements of his playing, rather than providing a support for him to navigate around if all got too much. Thus, progress on many fronts.

It took us about two hours to have everything set up (of which around 15 min was spent trying to locate and sort a problem with foldback). Still too long, but getting there. And it’s a hell of a lot of equipment! Take down was down to 40 min before packed and gone, which is getting better and close to optimum.

We had A3 posters placed around the pub, but you had to look to find them. They had been placed under the TVs, and not on the walls in prominent blanks spots. Thus, they were lost in the visual clutter that often surrounds tellies. I reckon we missed a few of the Glynde’s regular punters (I know of at least one) because of this. Maybe we need to take more control of in house promotion in future?

While on the subject of promotion, we have let ourselves down during the last two shows by not having our 'Negotiators' name board up on stage. It might not seem much, but we are exposing ourselves to new punters everytime we play these days, and we need to know we've done all we can to help them remember the band's name. It's a long haul to build a following, we need to keep our name up there.

The saddest thing of the evening happened after the show, when we learnt that the pub is now under new management and that they will likely be doing bookings through an agent in future. Which tends to cut us out of the equation – agent equals someone making money out of you by telling you what to do and they tend to react badly to the fact that we don’t have the classic profile of a rock band (we’re not naïve, twenty and easily exploitable). Equally sadly, it seems that we may not have much choice about this in future, as that seems to be the way that most corporatised venues in the post pokie era tend to run.

Finally, during one of the breaks between sets Terry slipped in a few old Requiem songs amongst the other 'background music'. Gotta say, sounded good! Not only did I immediately think we should be playing our originals, but, viewing the audience, I could see that they quite liked the songs they were hearing (and some of them didn't know it was us until they worked it out). Some of the audience also told me that we should be playing our own music as well as covers. Something for our marketeers to consider. And, just to prove you learn new things all the time, we might want to put harmonica into the song "Butterflies and Fairytales" as I heard checking his harmonica out while the song was coming through during the break and it sounded just right...

Gig this Saturday Night

We are playing at The Glynde Hotel this Saturday, 13 May.
Click here for details.

It's been an interesting five months. Sox put himself out of action in January, Terry left the band in March. Chris has been playing drums with us while Sox recovered, Barry has been playing bass since Terry departed. Terry helped out with sound and lights at our most recent gig.

This weekend we finally get it together. The Negotiators look forward to seeing you see all of us have a good time. And just to shed a bit of light on the subject, Terry will be there with his lightshow. You'd be a mug to miss it!

Click here for details...