GIG REVIEW

14th July 2006 - The Kirkhouse, Merthyr Tydfil

Summer's fantastic isn't it? Two days on the road in the blazing sunshine and two great gigs. The first of the two gigs was in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales. We had to be there by 20:00 so we gave ourselves 5 hours to get there with a target departure time of 15:00. For once we actually left town on time rather than an hour late! It's a good job we did as we had massive holdups on the M42 (the entire length of it in fact) and the first 10 miles or so of the M5, which added at least an hour on our journey causing us to arrive half an hour late in Merthyr Tydfil. But other than crawling for an hour round Birmingham it was a really nice journey, sun blazing down, couple of beers for passengers, plenty of joviality, decent tunes and, shock horror, a recital of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Eagle"

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Shane was most put out that we were all well impressed with Gail and tried to recite some poetry himself, none of which was much above the level of "The cat sat on the mat".

We arrived in Merthyr about 20:20, already twenty minutes late, and then spent 10 minutes driving about, looking for the venue (our map proved to be slightly inaccurate). After a quick phone call from the venue, we were directed there and pulled up outside by half past. We were supposed to be finished with set-up and sound check by 21:00 so we jumped out the van and got straight on with it, lugging the equipment (full PA) up the stairs and on to the stage. Sound-check actually went really quick and we got a nice sound out of the PA pretty switfly and were done by 21:30. With that done, we set off up the road out of Merthyr in search of a campsite for the night. Only a couple of miles outside of Merthyr we came across the first one so we stopped off to see if they had any spare pitches and whether they were willing to accommodate a bunch of musicians that wouldn't be rolling back into the campsite until the early hours. Shane and Gail went off to have a chat with the owner and shortly came back saying there was a barn we could choose to stay in back up at the entrance to the site. So we checked it out and were well impressed and all went back to see the owner to say we'd have the barn thanks. She said that would suit both her and ourselves so we ponied up the dough and went back to the barn to sling our gear in. That done, we nipped back into town, stocked up on beer and munchies and killed the remainder of the time before the gig having a few beers in the barn.

We were due on stage at quarter past midnight so we headed back to Merthyr and arrived at the venue just before midnight. There was a slight degree of trepidation with it being a night club. Night club gigs are usually difficult gigs as the audience tend to be more interested in drinking, socialising and dancing to the DJ. Despite this we were all actually well up for the gig and looking forward to playing. And what a gig it turned out to be! Right from the off with Square One and Politik most people were paying attention and getting well into it. We were only playing a 45 minute set so after the lesser known openers we launched into a stream of Coldplay's hit singles: God Put A Smile, Speed of Sound, Yellow, Clocks, Talk and The Scientist. The crowd were really superb, plenty of applause, cheering, singing and dancing. It was a first for a night club actually, I've never seen that kind of crowd get into a live band like that. We really enjoyed it. We got a great cry for more so we went back up and finished off with Fix You.

With the gig over and the DJ banging out banging tunes, we headed straight back to the barn. We stayed up late downing beer, playing cards and having a good laugh and eventually turned in just before the sun rose. We had to be out of the barn by 10am so we were up at half nine, packed up and cleaned up and out by 10. We'd left the gear over night back at the venue so first job was packing all that away. With that done we parked up in town and had some breakfast in Wetherspoons. Shane's always looking enviously at the food Jimbo orders so he thought he'd outdo him this time and ordered a full Farmhouse breakfast, considerably larger than Jim's normal full breakfast. Turns out Shane's was only luke warm whereas Jim's was hot so Shane still ended up envying Jim his food. One day he'll learn and wait for Jim to order and then order the same. Anyway, with hunger abated and a few cuppas downed we headed out of town for a circuitous drive to Melksham.

We really enjoyed ourselves at this gig. The crowd were up for it, the sound quality was excellent and we all played a blinder. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that for me personally, it was the best I've played with this band yet.