Salisbury Beerex

To Salisbury on Saturday for the 30th Beerex Beer Festival, which turns out to be in a rather impressive old church converted into an Arts Centre. For the second gig in a row we've got a nice big stage to play with, complete with a massive arched stained-glass backdrop, featuring a bloke with long hair & a beard (clearly pissed, who's lost most of his clothes and fallen into some brambles), draped over a sort of wooden cross thingy while a lot of people look at him disapprovingly. I mean I'm flattered, obviously, but I wish they hadn't gone to so much trouble...
Lots of time for a soundcheck for a change, and for such a huge venue the sound is actually not bad at all - someone who knows something about acoustics has put some effort in here - and our godless heathen racket eventually wins over the sizeable crowd of almost exclusively male beer drinkers, even dragging most of them away from the tantalising array of over 60 real ales on offer.
I only spotted half a dozen women in the whole place; one asks us if we can play some old style Rock'n'Roll (we could, but why on earth would we?), one tells us that she's "acshewully the fire schteward...so it'sh my reshponsibility to, umm, you know, shave everybody's livesh if there'sh a fire...", and one mistakes me for Bill Bailey - a comparison I'm happy to go along with, given that I've recently been compared to Rasputin & Satan...
Many thanks to Salisbury CAMRA for asking us to play, we had a blast, and much appreciated all the lovely beer they gave us to take with us, too... I polished off my Old Growler as soon as I got home. Mmmm...

BITL @ the Prom

Video of Billy in the Lowground @ the Prom last month, courtesy of Martin Moss, though the ham-fisted editing is all down to yours truly... cheers Martin!

Shaftesbury Arts Centre

This gig was booked several months ago, long before anyone knew what dates Ingerland would be playing matches in the World Cup (or indeed whether they'd even qualify), so it was with a familiar sinking feeling we noticed it clashed with their first game against the USA... oh well, we reasoned, there must be loads of people in Shaftesbury who would rather see us than a bunch of overpaid pillocks ruining a perfectly good lawn, mustn't there?
The venue itself is great, a nice theatre with a huge great stage, loads of lights, backdrops, and a backstage area with a table containing several empty bottles and a pot of Geraniums. Clearly someone has got confused over our rider, which I'm sure specified several full bottles of Guinness? We make the best of it however, and eat as many of the Geraniums as we can manage, apart from Chris, who has a pathological aversion to salad.
Meanwhile, the very apologetic and charming organiser confirmed our fears that ticket sales had been "disappointing"...
Seven, to be precise. We counted 'em in, and every so often Chris got the excellent lighting man to light 'em up so we could check none had escaped. Never mind, it's quality, not quantity that's important, and for 7 people they did a damned fine job - we really enjoyed ourselves. Particularly nice to see Elodie from the Plough at Manston there with Dave, the Man in a Hat, to whom many thanks for the great photos..!
As we packed the van up at the end of the night, several grim-faced men in England shirts wandered past, muttering something about a "complete bloody disgrace..." Apparently, a huge audience is no guarantee of a good gig!

http://www.maninahat.com/

Tiddley Om Pom, Pom...

Back to the Prom in Bristol again the other week, which has had a few improvements since last we played there - the stage has magically expanded (unless we've all shrunk, which is a worrying possibility), and the PA's been overhauled; we were under strict instructions not to break it...
Sound was as good as ever, but unfortunately we outnumbered the audience for much of the evening, which is a good thing if it all descends into an anarchic punch-up, but since it didn't we were a bit lonely up there...
Anyway, many thanks to those hardy souls who did make it - next time tell your friends!

Stepping Stones, Poole

All the way down to the South coast on the Friday night of a Bank Holiday weekend... what could have been traffic hell actually wasn't too bad, and we even found the place easily too.
The Stepping Stones is a huge great sprawling pub with acres of space to play with, which I was particularly chuffed by as it gave me a chance to wander around unencumbered by trailing leads, thanks to my new wireless rig. The rest of the band glowered jealously as I skipped merrily around the back of the room, wishing I had a trio of husky roadies & a surfboard... they'll all be getting one, now.
The downside of this ability to mix with the audience is that, well, you have to mix with the audience. As we tried to soundcheck, I was subpoenaed as an expert witness by a ruddy-faced all-day drinker who'd bought what he thought was a little guitar for his son, only to be told by his slurring companion it was a ukelele. One look at his popping eyes, dodgy tatts & general air of a man who could explode into violence made me very glad that it was, in fact, a tiny guitar...
Not a bad gig all in all - good sound, lots of room, and a very friendly ex-punk landlord, but a bit dispiriting going all that way to play for a couple of dozen people, so I doubt it'll become a regular fixture.

Deepest, darkest Devizes again...

Back to the Bear Hotel's cellar bar on Saturday, on a nice balmy spring night, only to be told we can't go in because all the electricity has gone off.
Only one thing to do - repair to the nearest hostelry to fortify ourselves while we wait for the all-clear from the Sparks. Down the road we trot, and into a decaying pub where the gurning landlord rests his gut ornamentally on the bar while his elderly wife does her best to coax some beer out of the pumps for us. A couple of superannuated rockers who remind me of the Chuckle Brothers are setting up a karaoke which occupies half the pub, and for a while we are haunted by the prospect of having to sit around and listen to whatever bangin' choons they've brought with them... happily the power is back on at the Bear, and we drink up hurriedly & leave.
Rather a rapid setup thanks to the late start, but the gig goes well, as they tend to here, and the stunned punters stumble drunkenly out into the night, ears ringing... job done.

Glastonbury Assembly Rooms with Pressgang

To Glastonbury on Friday, playing support for loud folksters Pressgang, who we last played with at Pontardawe Festival a couple of years back - a lovely bunch of chaps who are currently promoting their latest album "Outlandish" - see the link at the bottom.

The Assembly Rooms is tucked down a little passage off Glastonbury's High Street, and once we've humped the gear up the many, many steps it opens out into a surprisingly large venue with a decent stage & huge LED lighting rig. Most venues smell of stale beer, fags & sweat, but being Glastonbury this one smells of incense with a hint of apple crumble, and there are smiley ladies placing tea-lights on every flat surface.
Nice little bar/cafe attached too, with local real ales, so I'm happy...
Pressgang have set this gig up themselves, and no-one's sure how many people will turn up, but arrive they do, and by the time we go on the hall's filling up nicely. With that big lighting rig it's a bit tricky to tell how many people we're playing to, but judging from the noise there's a fair few of them & they like it a lot!
We thoroughly enjoy our little selves too, and after a couple of encores we hand over the nicely warmed up crowd to Pressgang, who are excellent, & get on with the business of drinking & sweating a lot. Now I come to think of it, perhaps it's not the venues we normally play that smell like that... perhaps it's us..?

http://www.myspace.com/pressganguk