Eastleigh Concorde Club Thursday April 26th

Well, we always knew today was going to be different….we just hadn’t realised quite how different ! We’ve been pretty lucky on this tour with things like breakdowns and issues with the gear, but today it all came home to roost. Two of our happy band set out early for Eastleigh in the vans to meet up with the local promoter and make a decision as to whether or not the screens could be used, or if we had to hire some in. Trouble is, only one of them makes it. The other van expires in a cloud of steam just north of the M4, necessitating the assistance of the good ole boys of the AA, and the word we get is that the van will be relayed to Eastleigh where they’ll try to find a garage to repair it there. So far so slightly calamitous, but things were about to get hairier. Rodders arrives at the venue to meet the local chappie, only to find that a) there was no sign of said chappie and b) there was a bloody wake going on in the room, meaning that we couldn’t get in until 4pm !! Not quite sure how the folks at The Concorde managed to withhold this piece of information from us, but withhold it they did. The other trouser-dampening moment was when we had to park the bus in the venue’s car park, as there was a fairly large, and certainly very woody tree branch stretching across the road at what looked like just about bus front window height. As it turns out, there was about six inches clearance, but for a moment we thought we were just going to have to park the Bogey on the main road outside the club. As it’s so small and inconspicuous, surely there would have been no way it would have attracted the attention of the local constabulary…..I’ve actually decided that if ever I’m in a potential survival situation, I want to have Big John with me. No sooner have I wiped the perspiration of relief from my brow that he’s got parked without damage or incident, than he’s all powered up and set for the day. This man could find electricity, wine and a cheese board in the middle of the Gobi desert. He’s not of this world…We get the word that the nice man, the very nice man, the very very nice man from the AA is going to drop the poorly van off at the gig to let us unload before he takes it to the garage, which is a right bonus as it saves us about an hour, but the joy of that is slightly offset by the “replacement rented van” incident. Once we realise we need another vehicle, I call the local branch of a well-known national car rental firm who shall remain nameless ( Enterprise )and explain our predicament. I tell them we need a long-wheelbase Sprinter or Transit and am told “ yes, we have one “, so they send a very nice young lady over to pick me up and go to their office. I go through the whole rigmarole…name, address, date of birth, place of birth, inside leg measurement, firstborn child, deeds to the house etc, then cough up an eye-watering amount of money. Finally they bring round the van…and initially I think it’s a Tonka version of a real Transit. One thing I DO know, long wheelbase it isn’t, and suddenly the very real prospect of half our gear being left on a Hampshire pavement rears it’s ugly head. I’m stuck now, though, so I head back to the Concorde Club, where I’m greeted by mayhem. Before I go any further, let me tell you about the Concorde. It’s a famous jazz club, and as such it has the low-ceilinged, split-level, plush-carpeted ambience associated with such venues. However, it’s fairly recently started hosting more mainstream shows such as ours, and they’d been very keen to have us, so our agent put in a date. The main problem we have is that we’re in the middle of a theatre tour, so we’ve got a theatre stage’s worth of gear. The entire square footage of the Concorde, however, would fit into the loading dock of somewhere like Stevenage Gordon Craig, so it’s a total flight-case fest as everyone scrambles for space. As the ceiling above the stage is really low, we can’t fly the projectors as we normally do. This means we have to put them low down to each side of the band, which in turn means that every time they move they become living projection screens, with a side order of blindness into the bargain. Still, in the immortal words of Professor Stephen Hawking, “ That’s the way the piss-pot cracks” so on we go with it. In all seriousness there’s really no way this size of show should be getting shoe-horned into a place like the Concorde Club, but they really wanted it, and we’re nothing if not versatile. We’ve already managed to work a kind of Tardis-like magic on the rental van….it’s got so much gear in it now that you’d swear it was bigger inside than out, and so getting a theatre’s worth of kit onto an 18’ x 12’ stage is a mere bagatelle for us ! The only other problem we face is that there’s a nucleus of regulars who come to have a meal and watch the jazz acts, and quite a few of them are here tonight as well, on an elevated section at the back of the room. Everyone else is at tables and chairs in a cabaret-style seating arrangement, and it’s decidedly odd. Marilyn arrives just as we’re about ready to start soundchecking, casts her eyes around the place and declares it “ intimate “. It certainly is….I’ve worn bigger boxer shorts. The other departure from the norm is that we’re not on at our usual 7.30 or 7.45pm…we’re on jazz hours here, so we don’t go on until NINE ! They do feed us a very, very pleasant dinner, but by 8.45pm everyone’s drooping, and before we go all you can hear in the room is the murmur of conversation and the clatter of cutlery. …not exactly conducive to atmosphere. As we haven’t been able to work out a way of getting the screens to run the full set of slides and animations, I find myself in the unusual and not totally pleasant situation of being redundant tonight….apart from not being able to do the full visuals, there are no comms either, nor can we use the pyro due to the low roof, so I’m sitting this one out. When the band first take the stage the response is a little muted, and the noise of the diners and hubbub of conversation are very off-putting, but as the set progresses there’s a definite shift in the audience attitude as they realise this isn’t just another band going through the motions but a full-bore, full-blown show. The band’s sheer excellence and the visual impact of the production we’ve managed to get in here start to make people turn towards the stage and not towards each other at a dining table, and eventually the first dancers get up and the cheers and applause get louder and longer. By the end of the second set we’ve wiped the floor with the audience, and we’re beset by people telling us it’s the best show they’ve seen in years or the best one they’ve seen in the club or whatever. I think even Marilyn was impressed; she’s seen the band themselves in smaller venues many, many times, but this is a different beast altogether. In the end all the broken-down vans, late load-ins, small stages, lack of space and audience ennui are forgotten, and this genteel corner of Hampshire becomes a heaving, sweaty rock club. At the end of the night there’s a BIT of a shock as suddenly we hear a shouty man with a distorted speaker exhorting the audience to cheer for yet more encores. …this is the evening DJ, and what he lacks in subtlety he fortunately make up for for in great tunes. Old classics like Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground and George McCrae’s Rock Your Baby bring back happy memories of school discos, Top Of The Pops, teenage fumbling and the subsequent slapped faces. As the music’s so loud I can bellow along to these songs to my hearts content, and I must admit, Faithful Blogreader, that if there had been a rug onstage, I most certainly would have cut it. It really IS a lovely venue, just a bit of an odd fit for what WE’RE doing. Jamie and Danielle from the club are both smashing folks and very helpful, and so a day that started out as a nightmare turns out really very fine indeed. There are beers at the bar after, as we’re staying here tonight, with the promise of both a shower AND a full English in the morning before we leave for Welsh Wales. It is, in fact, very civilized, and Tomps and I both resolve to come back here for a jazz night and a meal and to stay at the hotel . Not like on a date, of course…that would be just too weird…so if anyone out there fancies some cool jazz and hot grub, applications on a postcard to the usual address, please !!