(Me and Marina Post gig)

What a weekend.

In 19 years of being in bands, and 18 years since I first played in London (At the Islington Powerhaus!) I don’t think I have ever played a gig that has ran so smoothly as this weekend just gone.

Back in about Febuary of this year I was talking to Frank of Flag promotions about gigs, My Girlfriend had very successfully arranged a show of her own band and the Chameleons at the Islington Academy through Frank and I was inspired that this would have been a great venue for Balaam and the Angel to play. So I spoke to Frank and introduced him to Des and Jim and the gig was on. I also thought that the most obvious band in the world to support would be Claytown Troupe another band whom I’m rather pleased to say I was instrumental in getting them back together in 2004.

Anyhow I put the bands name forward and again that was all sorted out. Thinking this would make a great gig, I left it at that, but then I thought? Well Balaam still owe me a gig from the one that got cancelled in 2008 because of Des breaking his foot, so I thought sod it and I put Secrets for September forward as opener, as this unlike most of franks gigs WASN’T a goth scene gig I knew musically we could get away with it.
It took a little bit of persuasion but as the whole event was my Idea he couldn’t argue haha!


So on the day of the gig, Picked up martin and drove in, didn’t hit much traffic and we arrived only 15 minutes after the time I had hoped to get there, Got unloaded and parked up, One thing I like about Islington on a Saturday afternoon is plenty of free parking in the side streets.
Balaam hadn’t started to do a sound check as Jim had some hassles with the hotels for the families that had come down (remember Balaam are 3 brothers so everyone inc Mum and Dad all come down).
So we toddled off to the Lloyds bar for some lunch.
Met up with Milton and Graham they were both doing stills photos for us, Graham is Andy from ALFs brother and Milton is a friend of mine via work, both had chuffing big camera setups never been so use to this pro thing haha. Got back and set up some of the camera gear and watched Claytown sound check had I not been playing I would have been part of there crew.
We then set up, which was dead easy as CTT were using Mikes drums and JPs bass amp so all I had to do was set up my kit. The in house crew as usual were tip top professionals and we were up and running in no time. My guitar was sounding really sweet and having the new EQ Pre amp on the Fishman bridge made all the difference to the acoustic sound, the sound guy though it was one of the most convincing acoustic sounds he had heard in a long time.
Once we were all done it was back to the dressing room to get ready.

Come to stage time and bang on 6.30pm we start, as soon as Mike hits the 4 beat count in of To Behold everything fits into place perfectly, I have not had such good on stage sound for a VERY long time. The set was 40 minutes and was over far too quickly. I fluffed one note BADLY in the solo of traces, and had a tuning malfunction during got to give up the ghost, other than that it was a great set and we had a very appreciative audience was also really cool to see all of Balaam watching our set, seldom does a headline band even stand in the same room as a support band let alone watch the entire set.







The rest of the night was great, Claytown and Balaam both did faultless sets. I filmed all of it, and I have put a bit of Balaam on YouTube and will put some other bits up later. It was also really cool that at the end of Balaams set Both Mark and Jim thanked me for putting the gig together. So was smiles all round. After the gig some of us popped over to the slimelight for an hour, well Martin wanted to go we were all knackered! Then Sunday travelled home via the New Forest for lunch at The Fighting Cocks in Godshill the best pub in the Forest.



Sunday evening, I played another gig, and literally only just made it. I did a similer set to the picturehouse gig the week before, it was a charity gig for Bands for Land a worthy cause, it was a shame that the Venue View2 in Plymouth wasn’t to charitable. The turn out was low and they forced the gig to end early, they also had the most horrendous drinks prices of any bar I have ever been to, £2 for soda water out of the tap? £3 for a half of Diet coke? Never going there again!!! Great weekend so very happy with it all. Now roll on Wednesday for the release of the new single!

Comments

Marc Hughes said…
nice one Matt !!

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