Wavendon Stables Saturday Nov 24th

Normally these blogtastic musings follow some sort of chronological path, meandering through the day from sparrow’s fart to the early hours of the next morning. Today, however, I’m going at this arse about face, for the simple reason that tonight we did possibly the best Bootleg Sixties show we’ve ever done, and my little synapses are still firing with joy at the very recollection of it. We’ve done sold out shows before, of course, but there was something about this one that set it apart. Partly it’s the venue, where the stage thrusts out into the auditorium and the audience are almost in the round, so they’re right on top of the band. Partly it’s the audience themselves, who were so up for tonight it isn’t true, partly it was because we made the place look and sound brilliant with all the screens and lights and that kind of malarkey, partly it was because the band were bang on top of their game, but MAINLY it was a combination of all of those factors, coming together to create something truly special, and if that sounds clichéd it’s simply because I can’t explain it any other way. It’s also not the longest blog I’ve ever done, because I’ve simply run out of superlatives for tonight. We’ve played at The Stables before and pretty much sold out last time too, but this one went “ clean “ incredibly quickly, and they even ended up selling standing room. It’s the first time we’ve had an oversold show, and what became really clear was that these people were here tonight because they wanted to be, not out of idle curiosity. The Belgrade Theatre may have had a bigger audience, but this is quite an intimate venue, and the noise the crowd make is astonishing. The other thing that I felt tonight, and please don’t think I’ve turned into some fey, poetic, hello clouds, hello sky kind of numpty, is that there was a real feeling of love coming back off the crowd. Yes, yes, I know, it sounds all pink and fluffy and Feng Shui, but there really WAS…..love for the band, the music, the pictures, the memories, the whole experience. Tonight was the vindication of everything that we’re aiming for with this show, the reason we put all the work and the money in. We all delivered a fantastic show, and I say that with total pride and honesty. We even had some technical gremlins, literally right at the start before the band had even started playing, and STILL it didn’t make a difference. There was extra pressure on tonight too….we had some guests in from Holland who are looking to take the show out there, and thus we needed everything to be just so. Sometimes that kind of pressure can really hobble you, but tonight we took everything in our stride, so if there’s no big fat tour forthcoming from these folks I’m going to go over there and set fire to their clogs. So many other great things happened tonight…..our very good friends Mike and Jean Ketley finally got to see the show ( and loved it !), I met long-time fan Rosemary for the first time, we had Junior on the team for the day, the lads got me some McDonalds Chicken Selects for tea ( truly splendid they are too ) and the lovely Carol, of whom more later, came back after a few days away, so all the portents were excellent. It’s not as though it’s an easy place to work, either…..the deep but very narrow stage meant that we couldn’t project all the images onto our normal backdrop, so we had to hire in and hang a couple of screens on the sides, Tomps and I couldn’t sit side by side and hold hands throughout the show as he had to operate from right up in the nosebleed-inducing lighting gantry, we couldn’t run the full pyro show for fear of immolating the front row, and there’s so little space at the side of the stage that Pug and I were literally behind the band. Add to this the fact that biblical amounts of rain were trying to turn Wavendon into an island state, and you had the potential for it all to be a total ‘mare. Not this time, though. Tonight was an absolute triumph…I’d even go so far as to say a landmark. THIS is where we want to be, and once you’ve had this kind of a night it’s hard to settle for anything less. I keep having to remind myself that we're only three years old as a touring project, and that it may take another two or even three to get us to the point where we can command audiences like this regularly. It WILL happen, though....THE WORLD MUST BE MADE TO LOVE US AND WORSHIP AT THE ALTAR OF OUR MAGNIFICENT FABULOUSNESS !!!!! Or something.