GIG REVIEW

8th July 2006 - Cosby Village Hall, Cosby, Leicestershire

Last gig review I wrote about coincidences, in particular how that gig was the second UK gig on the trot that we travelled down the A46 and the second gig on the trot that we played outside. Well guess what? They come in threes don't they? This gig was down the A46 and outdoors! It was booked just before we went to Malta, about three weeks ago, which is pretty soon before the gig by ordinary standards. We didn't know much about it other than it was some kind of village do. Shane had looked a bit up on the web about it and found out it was some kind of memorial for old war heroes, pictures of rows and rows of elderly people. As such we were a bit bemused why a Coldplay tribute band had been booked and were a bit sceptical about whether it was gonna be a good gig. As it happened, it turned out to be an excellent one.

We were asked if we could please turn up by 11:00 am so we got up well early and Shane and I went to pick up the van just after 7 - only to find that they didn't open until half eight on a Saturday! (they open at 7 every other day!). So we went back to Shane's house for a cup of cha and a game of pro evo. Therefore we were delayed a while and eventually got into Cosby just after 12, the last half mile spent crawling in first gear behind the bagpipe parade through the village. Upon pulling into the car park we saw a lorry trailer at the side of the town hall overlooking the park - surely that wasn't the stage we said. It was. It did actually turn out to work a treat though. Bill, the organiser of the event, came out to greet us. He was a well sound guy, dead friendly and very helpful. He offered us the option to play inside or out and with it spitting about with rain at the time we were leaning towards playing inside. When we had a look though we opted to go outside. Once again, that turned out alright too as the rain held off and it gave everyone a chance to doss in the park while we played.

We had plenty of time for a leisurely set up and sound check during which we chatted to several people, all well sound, and drunk a few free beers. After that we were invited to eat as much of the buffet as we wanted. I asked Gail to sample a bit of everything to see what had meat in and what didn't and, naturally, she more than willingly obliged.

Our "support acts" for this gig were totally different to anything we've had before. A girl got up and sang two or three old 40 wars tunes to a backing track CD (great voice) and then there followed an impromptu karaoke session. We were treated to a rendition of All That Jazz, a duet from two little girls, a group of five young girls doing a few pop tunes (Kelly Rowland etc) and topped off by an elderly chap doing an acapella rendition of My Way (he'd forgot to bring his cd). I don't think anyone other than the first girl had been planned but it was that kind of day - a day for the villagers - and it went down really well. With the "support acts" over, the raffle was drawn and then we hit the stage. Oh yeah, while we were watching all this, a dog cocked his leg up Jamie on his way past .

It was good to do a full set - the last couple of gigs were short, half hour sets and the last time we'd done a full set was nearly a month before at the Newark Kit Car Festival. We opened with the usual Square One followed by Politik, once again wondering how well they'd go down, suspecting the majority of the crowd only really knew the singles, but they both got a really good reception. The whole set went down really well actually. I think they really enjoyed the hit singles the best but I also think they just enjoyed having a live band playing in their village park. We got three encores anyway, the first being our usual Talk, In My Place, Fix You combo. Bill really enjoyed seeing his hard work to organise the event coming to fruition and during the opening riff of Talk he jumped on stage, told us to stop playing, grabbed the mic and told the crowd that when he'd confirmed the booking with us he'd dreamed of that moment, i.e. Talk playing out across Cosby Park. He was well buzzing. After the first round of encores, he got up to the mic again and gave us another big up to which they responded with more cries for more. So we duly obliged. The only other songs we could've played were probably not so well known and we would've probably been a bit rusty so we repeated a couple more that they wanted to hear again - Yellow and God Put A Smile. We left the stage again for a second time, Bill returned to the mic, bigged us up again and got another encore out of us. Seeing as we'd played Talk so well and it'd had gone down really well, we repeated that one.

We had a bit of a kick about after the gig and spent a while chatting to Bill, his wife and a few other people. Several other people came up to us after the gig to shake our hands and to tell us they'd really enjoyed the show. We eventually hit the road in search of food and as usual, Gail wanted pizza. We'd got some instructions on how to find the nearest Pizza Hut but we failed miserably so we had to stop and ask someone in the street. He directed us to a village called Aylestone on the outskirts of Leicester where we found a row of takeaways. With everyone suitably filled we hit the road back home ... and ended up in the centre of Leicester. The sign posts for the A46 in Leicester are absolute garbage. We missed the first turn off from the ring road so we followed another sign which told us it was the way to go for the A46 and then that was it - no more until we'd done a trip round the city centre. After about half an hour we eventually found our way out, got on the A46 and headed on home.

Like I said at the start, we didn't know what to expect from this gig and were concerned that we were not the right band for the day, fears that were further compounded when we turned up at the village hall behind a war hero parade and saw our stage was to be a back of lorry. However, our fears turned out to be completely unfounded and we had an excellent day. The people were well friendly and exteremly hospitable, the crowd enjoyed the gig (three encores!), we played for over two hours, the weather was great and we even got to have a kick about. The whole point of the day was the rededication of the village park (Victory Park) in Cosby. The park was originally created in thanks and rememberance to those who gave their lives in World War I and a magnificent park it is. Bill had arranged a couple of parties in the park in the previous two years but had not had the support of the local Parish council so this year he decided to do it on the back of the rededication ceremony. It's a shame the parish council won't have anything to do with him or the event as he did a great job for the community. Apparently they'd issued a notice saying that they wouldn't talk to him and also that they wouldn't support an event that was for the "minority". That's strange, I though councils were there to help support the minority. Bill did a fantastic job of organising the event for the community, the people that attended had a great day, from the grown ups to the kids, and we had a fabulous time too. Cheers Bill!

	Two-in-one! A collector;s item	Ten minutes into the drive home

• Return journey to Cosby : 250
• Total miles travelled : 10,720

18th July 2006