The Negotiators played the Cumberland Hotel (Glanville) on Sunday, August 20th. It was a good gig, albeit of a different character to most of our recent shows (with the possible exception of that at the Hackney Hotel). Audience was appreciative, publican was happy, we had fun. What more could you ask for?For me, the whole thing was a bit different from normal. Perhaps a narrative of the evening from my point of view (rather than the pseudo-objectivity of my usual ‘report format’) might convey some of the flavour.
As those of you who read my other blogs avidly may know, Nancy and I are in the throes of moving house. From Thursday night on it had been one slow motion conveyor belt from old house to new, with lots of lifting heavy shit upstairs. By Sunday morning I was digging and doing heavy lifting. Nancy was coming down with what has turned out to be laryngitis. By three o’clock I was finished what needed doing. By three thirty we got to the venue. By four o’clock we were playing.
All the gear was set up when we got there. Made it seem easy. I had to chuckle at what some of the audience must be thinking, as all the fellows do all this hard work setting up and then along comes a bearded guitarist in time to plug in for the sound check at ten minutes to go.
If they thought I was going to be the guitar hero, they must have realised that that was not the way it was to be in the first song when I broke a string. Let us hope this is not a return to the bad old days of my old Fernandez guitar. We’ll see…
Anyway, I changed to the Les Paul copy of Steve’s and got straight into the next song, ‘Stuck in the Middle’. Nancy was already into gear, and the guys were fast catching onto the spirit. We played through the set, ending with a cut down version of ‘Ring of Fire’ (due the incipient laryngitis).
The audience was classic cumberland (see various previous posts for what this means). We had a few regular fans, a few friends, and the usual sceptical but openeared regulars. We won over a few more of the locals by the end of the first set.
Sharon ran the sound again. She enjoyed herself amongst the punters, and quite looked the part of rock techie. The sound was good from stage, and I believe was a nice mix from out front, which is pretty important to how we come across to the audience. As she grows more confident, I think she’ll enjoy it even more.
The weird alien lighting rig set up a nice mood, not too distracting and fairly well balanced across the stage. It was a lot closer to us than it was in the bigger venue last week at Rosewater, Steve thought it made it noticeably hotter on stage. It’s a pretty decent light show, a couple floor lights and we’ll be laughing.
We had a few dancers more often than not, and played a fairly on-the-edge sort of gig. Highlights to me included; my first string change on my Cort guitar, making it through the third ‘Beatles’ set on the wing (having not had much chance to revisit these new songs in the last week and having misplaced my ‘memory sheets’ during the move), Barry’s crunching bass in ‘Get Back’, Nancy rocking it out to several of our instrumental sections, improvising a new backing vocal in ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, getting ‘Long Way to the Top’ just right, Chris’s pulsing cymbal rhythms, and sorting and packing all the gear in just over half an hour after we’d done.
But the greatest thing about the show was that, despite the ‘technical deficiencies’, it was still a gutsy gig, an adventure that we all enjoyed. I’m pretty sure that we all felt invigorated after four hours of playing hard rock, despite the fatigue creeping in. It was a workman like devil take the hindmost type of show to play. The newer linup, the technical help, the equipment evolution, all pulled together to make a good show out of what might once have been seen as difficult circumstances. It’s a very cool thing to be part of the evolving collective artistic entity that is a rock band. Everyone should try it some day.
Before going I should mention that Steve didn’t have his keyboard with him. This cut out a few songs from the repertoire, but I think it allowed him to just keep playing rather than think too much about coming instrument changes. It’s absence saved Sharon the hassle of having to factor in the ‘voice’ of the instrument amongst the PA mix. It also further opened up the stage, allowing us that valuable performance commodity – space. Especially combined with the fact that the mixing desk has migrated from side stage to the front since Sharon’s been along with us, it seems we have room to move on stage again – which leads to a more active ensemble.
We’ll see how we go this Friday night at The Squatters Arms Hotel in Thebarton.
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