Telford Oakengates Theatre Sat March 12th

As it’s relatively short run from Derby to Telford we’ve opted to leave the bus outside the Assembly Rooms and leave at 8.00am this morning; that lets everyone have a night in the bus where it’s not moving, and we’ve got daylight if we have a problem with the van again. One again the theatre have been very helpful and have left us a power cable out for the bus, plus the lovely Heather from the venue lets us in early to do the whole shower thing, so it’s a squeaky clean bunch of Booties crew who convene for the load-in. It’s a new one to us, is the Oakengates, but it’s a cool little theatre and the tech lads, Euan and Rob, are not only helpful but a good laugh too, which always helps the day along. As I’ve got a boatload of admin to do I’ve gone in early, and the lads kindly let me skip the first part of the load – in to finish off. For some strange reason this takes longer than expected and I finish JUST as the last piece of gear rolls onto the stage….! As soon as we start to set up I’m reminded of a little army of worker ants….everyone knows exactly what they’re doing and so we scurry around the stage, antennae wiggling. Everything is going fine until someone drops a sugarlump on the floor and we have an uncontrollable urge to swarm all over it…..It’s another quick build today, and that can only mean one thing…fish and chip break !! Arthur heads out and returns with the biggest portions of chips I’ve ever seen…I mean, whole fields of spuds must have given their lives to feed us today, and I’ve also got what appears to be two fish, which means something almost unheard of happens…I have to (gulp!) leave some. For a cove raised on the sanctity of clearing your plate at meals, this is tantamount to sacrilege, but I really DID feel like a bursting sofa by the end of it. By showtime I’ve managed to prise myself into an upright position and waddle over to my position at Missile Command, and I’m hoping that the band haven’t partaken themselves, or else this is going to be a somewhat static performance tonight ! Luckily they haven’t, and so they kick off with their customary vim and vigour. When we do these places for the first time you really can’t tell what sort of response you’re likely to get, but the show has sold quite healthily and the applause we get is substantial and prolonged. There’s plenty of life in these folks, and as the set progresses it quickly shapes up into one of the better gigs we’ve done….the band are on form and all the “ crowd pleasers “ do just what it says on the tin. The acoustic section goes down very well too, and we’re cruising by the interval. The second half kicks off much as the first and we relax into our roles until suddenly Jamie has a senior moment during Itchycoo Park and goes into the chorus instead of the second verse. The band recover really, really well, but Jamie’s been thrown and as a result his vocal virtually disappears from the mix, prompting Arthur to warn us on the comms that maybe his voice has gone. As we’re about to go into the Hole In My Shoe / Strawberry Fields / Whiter Shade Of Pale section there’s a quick flurry of conversation as we try to work out how to jump the visuals forward if Jamie has to duck out of these, and as s result a miss a cue, but then Jamie comes over to the piano and we see him give a thumbs up to Junior. There’s a collective intake of breath as he sings his first vocal….and it’s fine. We realise that what must have happened is that when he realised his mistake he must have backed right off the microphone and that’s why we weren’t hearing anything. It’s been a false alarm but what it DID show was how well trained we all are now…the band got through the hiccup with barely a missed note and we’d worked out a Plan B for the visuals within a matter of seconds. This only comes from practise and experience, and we’ve now got both in spades. The rest of the show is a total triumph, and Telford becomes another venue to add to the “ we’ll come here again “ list. As it’s a shortish run to St Helens we’ve decided again to stay here tonight, courtesy of those nice Oakengates people, and do the drive tomorrow morning. That can only mean one thing…après gig !!! There are two pubs within staggering distance of the venue which stay open late, and so we quickly load out then head into town for a restorative libation or two. The first sight of the town as we leave the theatre isn’t a prepossessing one….all the shops have shuttered fronts which are somehow eerily reminiscent of Beirut, but by the time we’ve made our way to the pub it’s looking a lot more homely. In a nearby club a Guns’n’Roses tribute band is playing, and we toy with the idea of going along, but when you’ve listened to music all day that’s the last thing you want, to be honest, so we all file into the bar, only to be greeted by the teeth – rattling, brain numbing volume of the TV which seems to be tuned to a channel specialising in dance music that’s not dissimilar to a pneumatic drill at full throttle. Grabbing a drink we head out to the comparative peace of the beer garden, where the six of us sit around a table and immediately begin checking our phones. Big John has been in the pub too and comes out to find us all staring at our screens. “ What the hell are youse lot doing ? “ he asks, and Tomps replies “ We’re just texting each other “ which would be even funnier if I hadn’t seen one of my daughters and her friends doing JUST that in the past. We know the band are somewhere in town as well ( maybe at the Guns’n’Roses thing picking up tips on throwing shapes ) but they’re nowhere to be seen tonight, so we crew monkeys and Big John settle down to an hour or so of banter, very little of which would be repeatable in a reputable family publication such as this…suffice to say the conversation touched on such things as the best swearwords I ever heard, incipient senility and a joke which ended “ and then the vicar said “ That’s not even my dog……… ! “