Cornucopia Gig, Wallaroo, 6 Nov 2004

Flowing from the Alford show came another gig, at a nearby town called Wallaroo two weeks later. It was in a old hotel, huge and rambling and full of mysterious angles and passages. The show was a private one, a surprise party for the pair who had been publicans for the past ten years, put on by the locals. Over 200 people paid $20 each for a ticket, the pub was closed for the night and the front bar invited into the dining hall for the party. Amazingly, despite the honoured couple being the publicans, it was a total surprise for them. They were flabbergasted. The proceeds for the night went towards a holiday voucher for the lucky couple. They must have been quite special for such a show to be put on in their honour. We played from eight to about 1.30 am on a long shallow stage. The night was organised by one of the barmaids, who had seen us at Alford and liked us so much that she asked us to play at her pub.

The people really enjoyed it, had people dancing from the second song. A handful came up from Adelaide, which was really good to see. The locals loved it.

We played four sets. Technically, our greatest problem was in the levels department, we didn’t have a sound check and the acoustics of the area worked real weird (levels were significantly less than at practice and the treble had to be down). We tended to accelerate the tempo as we played, which was also a consistent problem. Overall however, it was pretty good. The publican said that if he hadn’t been leaving, he would have had us play there once a month.

Pretty cool, for a band’s second gig.

Alford Gig VIII

So, there we were in the dining room area at the Alford Hotel. A pretty cool show proceeded to happen. We had them up and dancing midway through the first, quieter, set.

We bring along our own gear, including coloured lights (!), so we usually have things humming nicely in a technical sense as regards sound production on stage. The real master of this is Terry. He also owns the PA system we use, the electric heart of the band. He controls it all from his mixing desks and racked up gear, usually set up at rear of stage.
So, at Alford, there we were in the dining alcove, having done a sound check hours before to an almost empty pub, about to play a song we’d only just decided upon. And this was knowing that there were a couple people in the crowd who were representing other pubs and clubs in nearby towns, a truly tupperware kind of moment. And it worked.

Alford Gig VII

And, as we like to be on stage as much as possible, out we went to play the song we had just chosen.

New note … I’m wondering whether I should put up gig lists somewhere on the web?

The way this blog is developing might be becoming obvious by now. I will tell a long term story, in this case our first gig. That gives me something I can always write about which is interesting to myself, and I hope to you, my valued reader. Interspersed through these long topic postings will be diary style bits, a running record of our activities and events. In other words, I’ll write what I like within limits set by my devotion to you.

Alford Gig VI

As always, however, the spirit of reinventing the wheel had taken hold in our band. The first sign of this malady appeared when we had spent a while figuring out where Steve should be located on stage so that he could change from keyboard to guitar without cramping either him or the rest of the band. That had taken a while. So it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise to find us, at 5 minutes to eight, all huddled together, as bands often do in such moments, undergoing a collective self doubt in our ability to play the first song. With a minute to go, we decided to put another song in its place.

Alford Gig V

Nancy had sorted out, through a process of trial and error and consulting with the other members of the band, five brackets of music, the last being an encore if required. We’d all sort of agreed to it at our last practice the previous Wednesday. So you’d think all would be okay for the first bracket, the first song of which was one we had been playing together in public as a six piece band for a couple of years.

Alford Gig IV

The Odd Sox is an all party five piece outfit. Nancy sings, Sox drums, Terry plays Bass, Steve plays guitar, keyboard and harmonica, and I, Mark, play rhythm guitar. We have a repertoire which varies from country rock adaptions, through classic blues, rock’n’roll, to hard rock verging on heavy. In other words, our music varies from Johnny Cash to ACDC. The interesting thing is that, as Requiem, we managed to pull this off in all sorts of venues to all sorts of crowds and we did return gigs at most places we played. Anyway, back to Alford (which, by the way, was a ‘return’ gig as we had previously played there on Easter Saturday) …

Alford Gig III

We knew there were a couple bands playing up the road at Port Broughton, a holiday oriented town many times bigger than Alford, one at least of which had a bit of a ‘name’. In other words, there was competition, and some people at least were chosing to come and hear us. Another good sign.

I’ll leave this here, see if there is any response to this blog. If there is, I will continue as the spirit takes me, hoping to document in some way the fantastic experience of being in a working rock’n’roll band. It’ll be a great story I am sure.