Forty minutes in a blue moon

Tomorrow, my band, Pocket Rocket, is playing a gig. It's at the club Sin in London's west end. I mention the venue first 'cos the not-so-rock 'n' roll aspect of it is that we are booked to play an annual fundraising event for the National Advertising Benevolent Society. They call it Nabstock. My feeling is that it's a gig, isn't it? We only play every 6-8 weeks and these days (ie: in our middle age), we would rather play gigs like this because they come with a guaranteed audience mostly under the influence of copius amounts of alcohol and therefore likely to dance to virtually anything. This is preferable to an audience comprising a handful of people we know, a few members of other bands on the bill plus a man and his dog at the Bull & Gate or one of the other toilet-scene London venues. I do miss 'em, really.

Our drummer has recently had an operation on his knee, following an injury sustained during weight-training. As a result of cutting the healing process a bit fine we are unable to do our usual full band rehearsal a couple of nights before. I think we'll be alright though. Our set tomorrow night is to be forty minutes long. We have a safe forty minute set; and a not so safe sixty minute one, which we won't have to struggle through, so that's good. Sixty minutes is almost too long for an unknown band anyway, I reckon.

Our bass player can't make rehearsal 'cos he's waiting in for his wife to come home from work to relieve him of parental duties. So that leaves me and our guitarist. We decide to get together anyway but instead of going all the way to the rehearsal room in Waterloo, I go over to his place, bring him some nuts 'n' raisins and orange juice (protein and vitamins) for him to consume on day of the gig and we go over the set and refresh our memories - It's been a couple of weeks since we last rehearsed as a full band.

Tomorrow night backline is (mostly) being provided; I have to bring a second guitar amp which is a pain though. Sound check is at 5pm. We're on at 9pm.

These are the facts. Now we can begin the hypothesising about how the gig will go? The less you play, the less sure you can be about how the gig will go and how well you will play on the night. It's a one-off. It's a lottery with chance related to factors such as the soundman, equipment, lighting, stage, audience, technical problems, mood, alcohol, clothes, nerves etc etc.

As most of my musician-readers will know, it is not about the performances of the individual members of the group so much as about the overall sound and tightness of the band. This means that you can play well (as a whole) and have a shit gig (personally). At our last gig, as a whole, we played well. Post-performance though, opinions of the show differed. I, for instance, thought I sang well but played guitar like a muppet, or at least a beginner. I was torn by my performance. I was loving singing 'cos the PA was so good - a good on-stage vocal sound, nice room acoustics - so I sang my little heart out. I just couldn't get into the swing of my guitar playing. I was having tuning problems, which made me panicky and self-conscious about my intros. As a result, I dropped out alot of the verse guitar parts coming back in for bridges or choruses which always heightens the dynamics but was intermittent enough to further stifle my swing.

A sound-desk recording confirmed how I felt abou the gig. My guitar was sort of out of tune in parts. Not too bad but just enough to bother me. And my singing was spot on. Really strong and clear.

So, we'll see. Another forty minutes in a blue moon. Watch this space for my post-gig analysis.