Glanville Wharf - 18 Mar O5

Glanville Wharf Gig – 180305

Requiem played at the Glanville on Friday night, show started at 8.30 pm and went to about 12.45 am. We played four sets, plus a couple songs tacked onto the end. Had about 3 dozen people present from midway through the first set ‘til after the last song. Everyone was happy with the performance, audience seemed very excited. Got another gig booked at the same place for the afternoon of the Sunday after Easter.

This is the third show we’ve played here, and all have been good or better. I know that for some reason I feel quite comfortable playing at this place, both in myself and as a member of the band. Which is strange because, ‘objectively’ speaking, as a venue, it has no outstanding positive features, and quite a few negatives. There’s something to ponder about here…

We had a bit of a scattered arrival time, and Sox was the last to turn up which is unusual. Playing on a Friday night could have contributed to this, as we all have occupations that keep us busy during week days. Perhaps Sox was last to arrive because he had furthest to travel (work – home – gig)? In our stage layout we reverted to having me front left/centre and Steve rear left. That worked fine. Apparently the sound was evenly mixed through the pub, and I know the beat was strong and steady.

We didn’t have any set lists drawn up fifteen minutes before the show. Instead, we (Nancy) put them together in the breaks and wrote out copies of each list for the band. It worked well, but would be too exhausting to do every gig as it means that some of us don’t actually have a break during the ‘breaks’. Gigs are hard enough to get through as is (just learnt from a TV show where a sports physician speaks of ONE song in front of a big crowd putting a singer through physical stresses (respiration and heartrate) equivalent to an endurance runner on a five km run).

Our truest fans were already there, eating, when I arrived. God bless them, they always stay as long as they can (usually till after we’ve packed up), drink lots and thoroughly enjoy themselves. They also listen closely and give us feedback if we want to listen. Including band members, we brought in a dozen meal orders for the pub.

First set was unusual in that, of eleven songs, over half we haven’t played publicly for at least six months, and about half were first made famous by Austalians. Although there weren’t many punters there yet, it was good to dish these songs up to those who have seen us rotate a fairly steady song list for six months. People were rocking up through the first set - a handful of locals, around a dozen people connected through Adelaide University, or through the women who had come up to Peterborough. There were even a couple fellows from the Mid North! Great crowd, most of them stayed all night and those that left did so because they had a long way to travel. Fair enough, was good to see them.

Second set was different in that we had a sax player who Steve knows join us. I’ve never played with brass before. I liked it, but it certainly is easier to fit five on stage than six (for a couple years we were a six piece). The sax player’s name was Rob, he hadn’t much experience with bands before. He loved doing it. Hope we see him again.

The rest of the night was cool. Everything went smoothly with a high energy level. We all raised quite a sweat (necessary, this, for a good gig – don’t know why). Tempos, leads, rhythms and memory all worked well, and audience got right into it. Had dancers for much of it (including a very martial scotts dance to ‘500 Miles’). The best thing about this good gig was that there was no ‘vibe’ that night except that which we brought on, it was due to us playing great rather than us playing on a great night. If you know what I mean.

Next Sunday we’re at the Cumberland again, and then return to the Glanville the Sunday following.

Gaslight Gigs, Feb - Mar 05

On Thursday Requiem rocked up at the Gaslight Jam, a weekly jam session at the Gaslight Tavern in the suburb of Brompton. The format for these evenings has basically remained unchanged over several years. There’s a ‘house band’ which has all its gear on stage, and plays music to warm up the crowd. The band at the moment has been there a year or two, a fairly tight rock combo with a steady diet of seventies music. They’re pretty good, though they do tend to play the same songs from week to week. They’ll play a set, and then introduce the next batch of musicians. This might be a ready made band (like us), or a thrown together band composed of musicians that are present. Unless there’s a special need (such as occasionally a keyboard) the jammers will plug their instruments into the amplifiers on stage. These ad hoc combos can be pretty damn good. There’ll be from three to six songs (depending upon how many are waiting to get up and how the audience likes the music). Then the next jammers get up. This goes on until 1 am, interspersed with the house band if there’s a gap between jammers.

It all depends upon how many musicians rock up for how the night will go.

We played around 11 pm, all covers. Tight, loud, professional. Maybe too much so, as the audience didn’t cheer like they usually do when someone’s cooking on stage. That would be a bit worrying, if I didn’t see that they were watching us very intently. Adelaide audiences can be a fickle thing. I think the audience was ‘judging’ us, as most of those people hadn’t seen us as a band, but had seen Nancy sing in lots of adhoc combos over the years as she often goes to jam nights on her own. I think they like her, and were judging her band, to see if ‘they’ll’ look after her. I guess they think we’re okay because they were fairly friendly to us afterwards.

The following Saturday night we played there in a regular gig. It’s been about nine months since we last played a real gig at the Gaslight. Was nice to be back again.

The dissapointing thing was the crowd, about a dozen through the evening. I don’t think the night would have paid for the publican. I spoke to her afterwards, she thought that there were quite a few other things on which drew her regular crowd away for the night. “That’s rock’n’roll,” seemed to be her attitude and I appreciated that. As always, there were also about half a dozen of our own followers who rocked up and stayed. As always, this was inspiring to us.

Musically, it didn’t seem to work as well as it has in past. Might be because, foolishly, we put steve back centre and me front left. Wrong move, as putting Sox and Steve together seems to disrupt the flow. We did it for various reasons that seemed good enough at the time (to Steve’s doubt). We should have left it the way Steve had it. Anyway, live and learn.

I broke strings on two guitars in the evening. Made a change of strings in the third break. We were tight, but there was a lot of work holding it together. I think Nancy had a sore throat and this restricted what she could do. Still, it was a pretty neat gig.

Next Friday night we play at the Glanville Wharf hotel, and on Easter Sunday at the Cumberland (Glanville). Both of these gigs look like being well attended. We have one practice session before then, so we hope to work out a few bugs in the meantime.