From London to France…and Back!! The Bowery!

It was our first gig at The Bowery and everything went well, sort of…

Sound-check was at 5pm and since we were headlining we got to sound-check first. They said they they could provide a back-line of drums, bass amp and two guitar amps; which is always a bonus since it saves lugging equipment across town! 🙂 This, though, is when fate decided to throw a few curve balls. I plugged into one of the guitar amps to be met with a crackling, bad connection sound. First off I tested the cables and they were fine, this meant it was the amp! Explaining the situation to the engineer for the night (I know he would have had a fair number of things on his mind, but still…) he didn’t appear to be too concerned. He did tell me there was another amp but that was completely gone! Marvelous.

Luckily, since we don’t have a bass player (yet?) I could use the bass amp and the thought of having to run back home to lug my amp across town was quietly subdued. Jildas, though, was greeted with a drum kit with only one rack tom, and you could see his brain re-working the parts for the tunes before he went on. The result? You wouldn’t have believed he played with two rack toms.

With troubles sorted we set off to look for food. In the end we ended up at Trafalgar Square where the International Organisation of La Francophonie (IOF) were celebrating “Le Français J’Adore”. This involved a number of stalls and a stage that hosted a variety of artists from French speaking countries. The event had been going on all day but we only got the chance to see Féloche, who with a cool variety of instruments put on a great show. Jildas acting as occasional translator. All in all it appeared everyone was having a great time, except Nelson who just stood with his back to the whole event! 🙂

After this we headed back to The Bowery in time to catch Moonlighter‘s set. They played a great set, getting the audience involved and kicking out some great tunes.

Then came our turn.

Playing wise everything was excellent, we rolled out the set, including a little interlude to celebrate Matt’s birthday (while he cleared his way through a few drinks). People remarked afterwards that it was probably the tightest they had heard us. This is especially interesting, since sound wise everything wasn’t quite so great. Despite a hopeful sound-check I couldn’t hear myself too well, neither could some of the audience. Some could where they were stood, others couldn’t. Odd. Jildas could hardly hear myself or Simon King. Unfortunately this wasn’t just a case of turning the amps up because the engineer had mic’d them up and was in control of the overall sound. I figured that as long as I kept time with Jildas, and Simon did the same we would be all alright. It appears that we were.

Despite the slight troubles it was a cool venue to play and with Matt’s birthday celebrations carrying on well after, overall it was a great night. 🙂

SET-LIST:

1. The Call
   
2. Sci-Fi Theme
   
3. All Too Easy
   
4. The Vice
   
5. Jack Chambers
   
6. Awake
   
7. Matt’s Birthday Jigg
   
8. Gypsy Slapback
   
9. Hammer