Last weekend’s visit to Geelong was full of surprises. We played at the National Hotel, a venue in Geelong that definitely has a slightly rough but cool vibe to it and one we haven’t played for a couple of years at least. So coming back brought back early memories of one particular night that saw us try to rock out with only an acoustic guitar, shaker and djembe to a bunch of old leather wearing, long bearded, scary looking bikers, who would have squashed us with one finger. Luckily, Byll somehow ended up charming them with her banter by starting up an on stage conversation with them which led them to even buying a few cd’s…Phew! Turned out they had quite a sensitive side under their intimidating exterior, so we ended up friends and shook farewell.
Now being a louder four-piece we feel much more confident when finding ourselves in similar situations. But Saturday was nothing like that classic gig that I speak of. This time it was quite different indeed, the room full of upbeat, happy, excited people who danced and clapped and sang along. Thank you hugely to The Evening Cast and Luke Legs for joining us for the evening and making it such an enjoyable night. We also must make special mention to our amazing sound engineer, Jono, who arrived a good two hours earlier than the rest of us to make sure the PA was sounding schmick, but then didn’t quite follow out his plan when he locked his keys in his car which had all the gear in it. After a couple of hours of Jono standing in the winter cold, we arrived to the rescue with some miniature novelty keys that went with our miniature novelty harmonica’s that have been on our key rings since America. Between the mini keys and some fine coat hanger work from a friend who obviously hadn’t broken into a car for the first time that night, we managed to retrieve all that we needed to play the show.
We had a great time playing and cheers to every dancer who hit the dance floor and waved their arms for the entirety of the show. See you next time G-town.
Beth
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
St Andrews gigging marathon
What a tops night at St Andrews on the weekend. It might just have been the longest and most tiring gigging day we’ve had in a while - two afternoon shows and two evening shows at the St Andrews Hotel – but it was awesome fun none the less. You can’t call us lazy, that’s for sure.
The day began quite early when Byll and I made plans to arrive at the market before the first show to hand out flyers to promote it. Byll has never been one to be able to put up posters or hand out flyers for something that she is involved in. Give her posters for another band, no worries; they’ll be up in a flash. But if she is in the band, and more to that is pictured on the poster that she’s putting up, no chance. Its definitely one of those things that you need to be shameless but proud in doing. However, she has no problem in hovering 5 metres behind me while I put them up/hand them out. So the very generous deal that Byll made was that if I handed out all the flyers she would buy me a present. I was happy with that so we continued on.
We began playing early afternoon for what was going to be a marathon of a day and we would like to make some special mentions to some people who made the day so enjoyable. Sisters Ruby, Holy and their legend parents who were definitely some of the best audience members we’ve had. We were delighted to find out that the girls recently took our album in for Show and Tell at school and played the whole album except for track one, hehe (…swear word..) And Chris who relocated his entire house warming party to the St Andrews Hotel for the evening sets, all of whom danced and sang all the words to EVERYTHING and then made us laugh hysterically when called for an encore of ‘Grandma’…..not what you would expect from a rowdy group of twenty something’s…. You guys are all absolute champs and really are the best part about doing music for us. So thank you.
By the end of the night my fingers hurt like hell and our voices had just about disappeared, but gee wiz it was fun. See you soon St Andrews, what a great part of Melbourne.
Beth
The day began quite early when Byll and I made plans to arrive at the market before the first show to hand out flyers to promote it. Byll has never been one to be able to put up posters or hand out flyers for something that she is involved in. Give her posters for another band, no worries; they’ll be up in a flash. But if she is in the band, and more to that is pictured on the poster that she’s putting up, no chance. Its definitely one of those things that you need to be shameless but proud in doing. However, she has no problem in hovering 5 metres behind me while I put them up/hand them out. So the very generous deal that Byll made was that if I handed out all the flyers she would buy me a present. I was happy with that so we continued on.
We began playing early afternoon for what was going to be a marathon of a day and we would like to make some special mentions to some people who made the day so enjoyable. Sisters Ruby, Holy and their legend parents who were definitely some of the best audience members we’ve had. We were delighted to find out that the girls recently took our album in for Show and Tell at school and played the whole album except for track one, hehe (…swear word..) And Chris who relocated his entire house warming party to the St Andrews Hotel for the evening sets, all of whom danced and sang all the words to EVERYTHING and then made us laugh hysterically when called for an encore of ‘Grandma’…..not what you would expect from a rowdy group of twenty something’s…. You guys are all absolute champs and really are the best part about doing music for us. So thank you.
By the end of the night my fingers hurt like hell and our voices had just about disappeared, but gee wiz it was fun. See you soon St Andrews, what a great part of Melbourne.
Beth
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