Maryport Blues Festival

It just doesn't get much better than this.

 

A top notch stage crew, treated like royalty, and a crowd that listened, responded (enthusiastically!) and supported us with merchandise sales.  We got a pleasant surprise when they told us that we had a full hour, not 50 minutes, to do the set.  We were able to add "Life's Too Short", which really shows off the horns.

The night before, at Alexander's in Chester, we ended with "Every Piece Of Me" (and then did the obligatory encore), mainly because the end of the set snuck up on me and we ran out of time.  It ended up being surprisingly powerful, and left the crowd very worked up.  I never would have thought of it normally, since it's a slow tune.  So, we did the same thing at Maryport, and it worked just as well!  Time to rethink the set order...

I had the opportunity to play through a Fender '65 re-issue twin.  I found something out.

I don't know how to work a Fender '65 re-issue twin. 

Should've stuck to the Marshall I've been using, which sounds incredible.  Not that the Fender sounded bad (how could it?), I just like the Marshall with this particular guitar a lot better - the overdrive, the sustain, it just works really well.  Oh well, now I know.

The rest of the band really sounded fantastic.  Mike played out of an SVT rig which made the bass sound like a living thing, pushing right through your chest.  The keyboards were perfect, the drums mixed exactly right, and the horns made the whole thing go way beyond the normal blues quartet.  |

We met a lot of great people, exchanged info, and then drove to Blackburn (couldn't find the 4000 holes) to stay at a pretty nice Travelodge.  Now I'm in front of the Hope Tavern in Lincolnshire, and we're getting setting up to do an outdoor gig here.  Glad we're not in NY, where the temperature is in the 90s!  It's overcast and comfortable here, and we just ate a huge meal.  They have "carveries" on Sundays, where it's a buffet of beef, lamb and pork (and vegetables).  We brought our New York appetites, and now we have to work for our supper.

After this, back to London and wind down the tour.

Alexander's (Chester, UK)

I'm writing this as we're waiting to go on at the Maryport Blues Festival - a great 50's retro act called The Revolutionaires are playing now.

Aside from Chester being a beautiful and historic city, the crowd there was unbelievable.  We got on about 9:45, and place filled up quickly.  We had originally  been told to play quietly because people would be eating (GREAT food there), but that went out the window almost right away.  The crowd was big, noisy, and appreciative!

We did two sets, inviting Chris Sharley up on the second to sit in on "Born On The Bayou", one of the few covers we did.  We got a chance to run through some of the tunes we're planning to do today, and after we finished up we did an encore.  They wouldn't let us go.  We did another encore.  They still wanted another one, but we had to split.  So, they took us home with them, buying a ton of CDs and a couple of our snazzy new tee shirts (really cool looking, by the way.)

We got to our very classy Travelodge Hotel (they rent by the quarter hour at this particular one), and Joanne and I spent a peaceful five hours trying to sleep, lulled by the gentle sound of trucks and sirens going by.

Just like home.

The rest of the guys were in the other building, which was quieter.  Still, nobody got much sleep, and bright and early we headed off the Maryport (about a three hour drive).  On the way we stopped in at Morecambe to visit the widow and son of our former agent, Cat Anderson.  It was a real pleasure to see them, if bittersweet for all of us.

So, The Revolutionaires are finishing up.  Gotta go.  Wish us luck!

The Eel Pie Club

There's no place like home.

And for us, the Eel Pie Club is definitely home away from home.  Although it's been five years, a bunch of our old friends showed up, brought their friends, and the place was packed out.  The band was so fired up from the crowds energy that I kept turning around and seeing big smiles on their faces. 

Our good friend, Pete Sargeant, sat in with us twice.  On the studio version of "Life's Too Short", my brother (Neil Alexander) plays harp, but he's not with us on this tour.  So when Pete showed up, I said "Hey Pete!  You play harp!  Got one that you can play over a tune in C?  Yeah?  Great!  You know the tune "I Wish You Would"?  Well, do a riff like that.  Call and response.  What are playing?  Don't worry about it.  I'll call you up on the fourth song of the set, be ready!"

And he was.  He came up, and did a great job!  We did a 50 minute set, took a really quick ten minute break, and went up for the second (last) set.  Pete came up again and sang "I Get Nervous", a Willie Dixon song.  Now it was our turn to play a song we never heard before, and it was fun!  The crowd was very responsive, to put it mildly.  When we played "Blues Enough", the audience chimed right in on the chorus.  When we did the encore (Son House's "Death Letter"), the applause was louder than the band when we played full out.

Once more, the Eel Pie Club (and the wonderful people who run it, Warren and Gina) showed us a fantastic time and the sort of response every band hopes for.

Famous Monday Night Blues (The Bullingdon, Oxford)

It's been too long - and we got cheerfully reprimanded by Phil and Tony for being away.  But it was fantastic to be back.  The sound was incredible, the people were responsive and stayed for the whole show, and everybody had a fantastic time.

We had the pleasure of inviting Krissy Mathews and and lovely singer from Australia named Cloey (who did a great job on At Last), and in the second set Chris Sharley joined us for a BB King cover.  But the regular band did a really outstanding job.

We did two sets, with a brief intermission.  I gotta say - these gigs are TOO SHORT!  I have to leave out half the set!  The horn section has all these great parts worked out, but there are a couple of tunes that we just haven't had time to play so far.  One of them is Streets Of Downtown, which (if I do say so myself) is a great song.  But you can only do so many slow tunes in a set...

Anyway, it was a great gig, and we're going to have to figure out how to get back here next year or face the "wrath of Phil"!

The Limelight, Aylesbury

We got to the Limelight Theater after the usual misadventures (lost the car we were following, drove around Aylesbury for fifteen minutes, finally found a place to pull over and got directions.)

Chris Sharley was kind enough to provide drums for us, so he was waiting there.  We brought everything in and I saw my old friend Krissy Mathews, who was opening for us.  Krissy is a natural born guitar player - I first met him when he was 13 and he blew me away.  No excuses, no "good for a kid", he was great right from the start.  I've never heard him on acoustic guitar before, and he was an absolute pleasure.  Put on a great show and the audience loved him.

Speaking of the audience, we got a great crowd.  There were only a few seats left in the balcony.  There was a problem, though. 

No stage monitors.

Yup, it seems the house engineer didn't check the equipment before he left for Cambridge.  What's more, he left it all in the hands of Ed, who openly admitted he wasn't a sound man.  He tried his best, while Mike Porter rewired everything in every possible way.  The windup was that we went on with no monitors, and no sub woofers on the main.  Just loaded bins stuck on top, so we had mids and highs but no lows.  We turned one of the mains sideways, and I used that as a monitor by walking to the front of the stage area.  Poor Ed was  trying to stop everything from feeding back, and keeping up with the horn section, my solos, etc.  He did a great job under tremendous pressure.

The gig itself went great - the audience was wildly enthusiastic, bought lots of CDs and a couple of our new tee shirts, and in general we all had a great time.  Krissy Mathews and Chris Sharley sat in with us on the only cover we did that night (except for the encore, Death Letter.)  I used the tried and true "Thunderbird", and everybody got a chance to solo.  Lots of fun, and Krissy got to show his absolute mastery of electric guitar.

So, we leave in a couple of hours to go to Oxford for the Famous Monday Night Blues performance.  I'll post about it tomorrow - wish us luck!

Playing Catch-up

Sorry, been pretty swamped but here's the quick version up to our gig at the Limelight on Saturday:

Flight was hectic: nine of us trying to get on the flight with our luggage less than half a pound below the maximum weight (we checked at another airlines scales).  For some odd reason, the Virgin Atlantic scales showed some of the bags being overweight!  I watched as the scales went from 25.5 kilos up to 28 kilos, all by themselves, after sitting on the scales motionless for over two minutes.
Anyway, we got it all figured out and got on the plane.  The flight was okay, except Joanne fainted halfway through - a combination of exhaustion, a glass of wine, the altitude, and whatever.  The crew was very professional and told us that they get at least one person fainting per flight.  Maybe that has something to do with VA?

Got through customs at Heathrow, our working papers all checked out (Thanks to Ben Ruth from CMEA!).  The cell phones didn't work with the SIM cards we bought, but eventually we got it all working.  The station wagon (called an "estate" here) we reserved wasn't available, and the car they gave us was too small to fit all the suitcases!  Fortunately, a lovely lady named Catherine Highlander was able to set us up with a minivan that seats 7, and it all worked out great.  It runs on regular gas, not diesel, so the mileage isn't as good, but it's still pretty thrifty.

Our agent Derek, and his lovely wife Ali, have been perfect hosts.  Half the band has invaded their home and we're camped out in various rooms.  The rest of the crew is at the Holiday Inn about a mile away, and have already made lifetime friends with the bartenders.

Next catch-up post: the gig at the Limelight Theater.

Getting ready to go!

Okay, two days - no sleep.  Frazzled?  Yeah, you can say that.  In the last four days, we've gotten the tee shirts printed, the CD cover designed and printed, add stuff to the mastered recordings (don't ever do that, btw.), got the CDs printed (on disk printing) and burned, hand made the CD package, and did all the usual get ready stuff.

But it's getting down to the last bit now, so I figure we'll drink heavily and sleep on the plane.  Sounds like a plan!

Seven ugly American musicians (and three beautiful women) flying to do some gigs in the UK, including a spot on the main stage at the Maryport Blues Festival.  Warm beer, cold weather, driving on the other side, and a shoestring budget - without the string.

Another Hitman Blues Band tour gets underway...