Friday, December 13, 2013

Bristol temple quay (in Gerry Cottle's circus tent)

Tonight's show will mark as my debut into a circus tent. 

Oh, wait.. I forgot about Waken 2010 with this show. 

Scrap what I was about to say. 

Today marks the second time I'll be playing in a tent. 

Hang on, we did 2 shows in Waken. 

Fuck, okay. 

Tonight's show is a break from the norm of theatres and town halls etc, we are in a Circus tent. The circus of horrors in a circus tent, who'd have thought? 

Well the people that booked us, that's who! It was an addition as the original toe dates didn't have this one on the schedule. Then it was discussed a week ago and then I thought, "hang on, what what what?!?" I only took a gig in at home a month ago didn't it. So I had to quickly tell that band I was unavailable and hopefully they'd not be too pissed. 

We got here at 10:15 am. But wasn't able to begin setting up until after 12:00 because of some Tv, and I don't mean transvestite, stuff that was going on with Gerey Cottle's circus in the morning. Suffice as to say, I was thinking of the couple of more hours in bed I could have had. Still, at least we were all here to start when we could have. 

Being in a tent proves a lot of challenges to do a show which has been plotted out for theatres stages. A rearrangement of the band was the biggest one, pa positioning and monitors another. I guess there were many others but not being directly involved in that I cannot comment. I know we had to rehearse the bringing on and taking off of props from different directions from theatre stages, so I suppose as far as the show was concerned, that was a the biggest of things to be concerned about. As for me, I plays the drums and set the pa up (albeit with a bit of head scratching) and I was done. 
Us in Gerry Cottle's tent. 

I spent most of the build up in a puddle. The drum riser was placed in a dip where a fuck load of water had collected over the few nights. After a while I felt like this:


A bit like me. But without the holding of the dick and pissing bit. 

Time was not on my side and so I didn't get out for lunch before meeting. But that was okay, somedays it's like that so there's no point moaning about it. 

Like I said, the meeting was held (an hour earlier) to discuss the rearrangement of show stuff. 

After an hour it was soundcheck time. And I was quite shocked how reverberant  a tent is. It's almost as much as some of these town halls we play with stone walls and such. All fx was muted to try and clean up vocals. But nothing I did made it so, it sounded like a massive spring reverb was inserted into the master mix. 

Not giving that much of a fuck, I just went with it. 

Prior to the show, the band and I went for a beer in a bar/cabin type thing which had seemingly been erected for Gerry's circus starting a few days later. I might be wrong, but I did have a feel of being thrown up fasto! The band were in full costume and normally this would raise eyebrows but not today as the bar was occupied by other such like dressed individuals coming to see the show. I presume anyway, perhaps they were just normal folk dressed as they would on any other day. 

The show was well sold and the atmosphere was pretty electric. Show went well and I came away having enjoyed playing in a tent looking forward to the short drive into Wales..... And then back again to get to Severn View services travelodge which was situated on the westbound carriage way. 

Fucking google maps doesn't route the service bridge does it? It wasn't I saw the tolls that I realised what was happening. 

I got Da to text someone in the minibus to warn of my error and to not make the same one themselves. Thus saving Haze £12 or something. 

I'm all heart me. 

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