All in all, a good day...
Entry posted by mark555
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There is a saying that go's "While the cat's away, the mice will play".
Now I am not saying Mrs 555 is a cat, that would not be nice! But she and our youngest daughter went to Liverpool on Friday and got home at Midnight on Saturday, and I like having the house to myself! Friday night I watched what I wanted on TV and found that a Billy Joel concert from back in 87 in Moscow was being shown, and it was very good, so after that i climbed into bed and read for half an hour.
Normally on a Saturday morning, after a week of getting up at 5.15am five days a week, I like to surface at a time of my choice, but not today. I was awakened by the sound of high pressure jetting going on at seven, not too far from the bedroom window where I was sleeping soundly. What had happened was that the sewer that tuns under our garden and the neighbours garden, had blocked up, and our very good neighbour had called out the water authorities to get it cleared. Those poor guys have an awful job to do, but I was glad that they came, even if it did cost me my lie in bed.
So, after a morning of shopping for the family groceries for the week and going to the garden centre for new hanging baskets, it was time to set of for band practice. We always say that family comes first, and because of commitments we have had among the band within our own families we haven't rehearsed for a couple of weeks. And I was dreading the rehearsal because I ad not picked up a guitar since our last one. But how ironic, the first song we ran through was Whiskey in the Jar (I play lead on this one) and I played flawlessly! Would you believe it? Maybe two weeks of not playing unscrambled some of the wiring in my head and allowed my brain and fingers to communicate with each other a little better than usual! I was very surprised.
We learned two more songs, Tom Petty's Running Down a Dream, and the Gary Moore version of Thin Lizzy's Don't believe a word, both great to play. And here's where the strength of this bands line up was showing, I could concentrate on playing as Dave, our other guitar player took the vocals on both songs. Just playing guitar is great, you do so much better, on saying that I take the vocals on Whiskey in The Jar.
Today we had our first practice at our new rehearsal venue, which is our church in another town, about ten miles away from where we rehearsed previously, but this building has much better access than the previous one, and for some reason, we like it much better. I think that there was a very positive vibe going on between us all, it worked to our advantage and we were all pleased with the days results. We finished off with Rock Around The Clock, just for a bit of fun. By five pm we were all away heading for home.
Last Thursday, Allen, the drummer from our old band dropped me an e mail inviting me to meet up with him at a gig he was playing about eight miles away across town. I always liked Allen, and when he left the band we parted on the best of terms and have stayed in touch. His band is called Roller Coaster. So after getting home, cutting the grass and getting a shower, off I went. The Venue was what we in England call a club, but is not anything remotely like the LA club scene that became famous. This is what you would call a Working Men's club, which are places where drinks are usually less expensive and the place has bands and other entertainment on at various times of the week. This was quite a nice club, but the concert room was not so big. The stage was triangular in shape, across one corner of the room and was very full with five people on it.
I was interested to see this band because they work regularly and it would give me an idea of what was about as far as other bands go. They were very much what I would call a "Clubland Act", any Brits reading this would know exactly what I mean. In the 50's,60's and 70's the working Men's club scene was huge for bands to play, bands would work all over, sometimes playing what was known as a "Noon and Night gig" where they played at lunchtime and again in the evening. You got varying quality of acts and bands, but some were really good. Some bands came off the club circuit and made a good living. Anyway, Roller Coaster would fit in the bracket of "clubland" very easily. The youngest player would be about fifty, with the eldest two being 70. However, they were warmly received and what they played went down well for the audience they had. Twenty minutes before the end of their second and last set, the rhythm player broke an A string and didn't have a spare guitar with him, so as my own guitar was still in the boot of my car, I offered it to him to finish off the set with, he was very grateful.
I was pleased to note that as a band we were much better. Now I don't mean that in any way big headed or egotistically, but when they played some songs such as Bad Company's "I can't get enough" and a couple of Stones songs, we would not have played them at that level as we would want them played correctly, and though they were obviously playing the songs, they weren't played correctly and some of those songs were lacking something. You can't play "I can't get enough" and not let that solo rock, it was like the Carpenters were doing a sacarin sweet version of it, there was no "Go" in the guitar. But I have to say, these were lovely friendly people who made me very welcome at their gig and also as we all sat together. I felt as though I made some new friends and they thought it was extraordinary that I would let their guitarist borrow my own guitar. I now know that we can really go out and offer a good quality show in comparison to some of the bands. However, please understand that I am not being big headed. I am also aware that many other bands are far better than us. But given what we have decided to do, we do it very well and no other band in the area will do it any better.
Once again, thank you for reading my blog. I really appreciate the kind words and comments often written but just now for some reason I can not reply to them within the blog page.
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