Blog: One For The Ages

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On Sunday afternoon I headed into London Town to perform Hey Hey 16K at the Go Faster Stripe Festival. This was a MARVELLOUS all-weekend event where eight different shows were being filmed in front of an audience for release as a DVD. Mr S Hewitt and I were VERY excited and honoured to be part of it!

I'd spoken to the soundman a few weeks before - "I'm in a hospital!" I said to explain my poor phone reception. "Oh, I'm sorry." "No, I work here" - and he had a PLAN about how to record us. Steve and I have never used any amplification for this show and so they had to find a different way to record us. Stands and clip-on microphones were suggested but we had to gently decline them - using stands would throw us completely, as we're used to moving around on stage, and the hula hooping and cardigan changes would have made a RIGHT old racket with clip-ons. This meant they had to try out several different configurations of ambient microphones until they got it right, and even then there were FEARS that it might not be the best way of doing it. "Your voices might not sound very good", we were warned. "That'll be ACCURATE" we replied.

(I've since been told by Mr C Evans , the proprietor of Go Faster Stripe, that the footage "rocks". So that's all right then!)

I'd been a bit worried about how many people would come to see all the shows, especially ours, but Chris had cunningly got the room set out in CABARET style (i.e. with tables) so it looked pretty cosy and we had about 30 in for us, which is at the very TOP of our usual attendance level. It was a bit odd beforehand as there were people DOING things like lights and sound and cameras and Moving Furniture which is NOT what we are used to, and both of us were feeling a bit nervous. This performance would, after all, be RECORDED and would therefore probably end up being the DEFINITIVE version of the show for The Ages!

As it turned out it WAS pretty definitive in that we had fun, got some laughs, and cocked up several bits. My guitar went a bit out of tune halfway through which put me off, causing a TERRIBLE mistake where instead of giving Steve his PROP half-pint of Very Drinkable Beer I gave him MY almost finished pint of Somewhat Chewier Beer, meaning he couldn't show off his drinking skills OR enjoy it! The out of tuneness got worse as it went on so after a couple of songs Steve STOPPED me to sort it out, which was very wise. He then tried to go back a line so we could edit it back together, but then SOMEONE decided to mess around and make REMARKS so it'll probably have to stay in!

It was GRATE fun to do, and there was much relief when it was finished. Afterwards I spoke to the camera lady, who turned out to come from STAMFORD. "It's weird to hear someone say 'Stamford' out loud!" she said, which is what I always think when I hear it! We then regrouped in the dressing room (it had a DRESSING ROOM - though a different one from last time I was at The Bloomsbury, which I discovered was now an office by the simple method of going for a nosey around and bumping into the surprised man whose office it now is!) and had a Chris, who seemed pleased with how it had gone. We started to tell him a STORY and he WHIPPED out his phone to record it - DVD Extras!

That done we nipped over to The Euston Tap to meet Mrs M Hewitt for a quick pint which turned into two slower pints, so much so that we MISSED Bec Hill who was on next and only arrived back in time to see Mr G Osborn and Mr J Hare doing their soundcheck. I'd fully intended to stick around for the whole show but a) was knackered b) had had a LONG weekend and c) would be seeing The G-Dog in a few weeks for the next Totally Acoustic anyway, so decided that Going Home was the sensible option.

It turned out this was the CORRECT course of action, as 45 minutes later I was lying on my sofa at home fast asleep. SHOWBIZ!

posted 11/11/2015 by MJ Hibbett

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