Dunstable Grove Theatre Fri March 19th

A bit of a Twilight Zone moment happened this morning, and once again I’m attributing it to residual shaggedoutedness. As Transmedia has been based in Bedford for yonks, we’ve had occasion to come to Dunstable many times, so Doris’s guidance is deemed unnecessary today. Rodders and I duly clamber in the truck and headed off. To avoid the fun and games of the A421, which is being turned into dual carriageway and currently resembles the Somme just after a major bombardment, we head down the A6 and chuck a right just outside Luton. “ Dunstable five miles “, the sign tells us, so we wend our way through street after street. After street. After street. Another sign pops up, and this time we’re only two miles away. We then pick up the signs for Town Centre and dutifully follow them. I’m a smidge concerned by the fact that I don’t actually recognise anywhere, but figure it can be only a matter of time before I see a landmark. We carry on, and it’s though as I’ve been dropped into a town I’ve never seen before. “ This just can’t be right “ I tell Rodders as two miles slips by, then three. “ I’ve been here loads of times but I don’t know this place “. Suddenly we see another sign for the town centre and we reckon we’ve finally cracked it…..but when we get there the town centre turns out to be Luton. Somehow Dunstable has disappeared, although we went right through it, apparently, and now we don’t know where we are and we’re late. The hardest part is that I don’t seem to be able to get my brain to function properly; years and years of touring round the world has left me with a pretty well-developed sense of direction and I hardly ever get lost, especially around somewhere familiar…..but I haven’t a Scooby where we are and I’m actually starting to panic a bit. Luckily we DO finally hit a road I know and we quickly get to the show twenty minutes late. I’ll leave you to imagine the ribbing we got for getting lost on the way to a local show……Once we’re finally here we remember how much we love The Grove; you can actually bring the truck inside the building and drop your kit straight onto the stage, plus it’s got lighting bars for days, a fantastic in – house PA system and it’s big, wide and mucho posho. Despite our tardiness everything flies up quickly and we set the house crew the Crème Egg Challenge; if we can beat our record load – out time of fifty – four minutes then we’ll buy them a whole henload of Crème Eggs. We’ve only had a couple of places get anywhere near that time since the record was set, but they’re a game lot here so the bet is laid ( eggs, laid….geddit ? ). Soundcheck is a bit of a treat for the old rock dinosaurs among our number; Jamie has been delayed by traffic so the guys give us some classic rock stuff; Sunshine Of Your Love, Purple Haze, a stonking All Along The Watchtower, Born To Be Wild and….errr…The Archies’ Sugar Sugar. Fair gladdens yer heart !! Fast forward to seven thirty pm, and we’ve got yet another good crowd tonight, with a serious sprinkling of wild and wacky Sixties outfits. One chap is particularly vocal and when Den spots him in his “ Jimmy Saville “ clobber he gets the guy up to take a bow. This is DEFINITELY what we want much more of; some of these folks look absolutely brilliant and we need to be acknowledging it somehow. Some brainstorming called for, methinks. It really is a great audience tonight, just like Aldershot they’re loud and appreciative and totally behind us….in fact, it’s shaping up to be one of the best shows so far, and by the interval we think we’ve got it nailed. WRONNNGGGGG !!!!! Although things start well enough when the lights go back down, we’re on course for a serious kick in the cods. Just as the band go into the first number of the “ psychedelic section “, the click track “ in Steve’s headphones disappears, leaving him unable to hear the metronome that helps him keep everything together on these two songs. Whilst Pug and Tomps rapidly check connections and leads to try and find the fault, poor Steve has to play quieter and quieter in order to try and somehow pick up the click. This is a nightmare situation….you can’t just stop and start again as it’s all tied in to the visuals, so Steve has to simply fight his way through the two – song section. That he makes it to the end without everything falling apart says a lot about his ability, but it’s unnerved everyone and although the audience don’t seem to have noticed, the band are definitely shaken. Worse is to come, though. Without warning, as Jamie gets about three quarters of the way through Handbags & Gladrags his voice suddenly goes. There’d been no wobble…it just happened. He’s a pro, of course, and instead of panicking he dropped the pitch of the last chorus of the song and made it to the end. We’ve still got Pinball Wizard, He Ain’t Heavy and Mony Mony to go, all of which feature him heavily, and the tension in the crew is almost palpable. I’m not sure what Jamie does offstage during the VT insert before Pinball but it must involve gargling with some kind of magic potion, because he manages to make a decent fist of the song and gets most of the harmonies on He Ain’t Heavy, but by Mony Mony he’s struggling again, and Den steps into the breach. Luckily the last two songs are both Den’s lead vocal, and finally we’ve made it. Judging by the crowd’s response they’re not in the slightest bit aware of what’s been going on, and despite everything that’s happened we’ve done it yet again. They’re standing up, shouting, clapping, yelling for more, and it’s totally, totally brilliant. Afterwards I ask Jamie how he’s feeling, and he’s totally puzzled about what happened. He says he feels fine and doesn’t have a sore throat, but that the upper register just wasn’t there when he went for it. The only consolation is that we’ve got a couple of days break now, and past that the end of the tour is just over a week away. It would be tragic to cut everything short after going through so much and coming so far with everything, but all we can do now is dose the lad with jollop, put him in solitary and cross our fingers……….