Blog: The Gladstone Arms

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Saturday was that most delightful of days: one full of THE VALIDATORS!

For LO! not only did we have a GIG booked in the evening, but we also had a RECORDING SESSION in the afternoon, to do some DRUMS for this year's Christmas song. When the song was written a couple of weeks ago we all got A Little Bit Excited about it, and decided that we needed to make an effort to record it properly (or at least not improperly). Tim had thus suggested that he, Emma and Tom set off for London a bit early (Frankie had already booked his train, so his timings were IMMOVABLE) and then we meet in a rehearsal studio in Holloway to do some recording.

So that's what we did! We were in a place called Storm, which was actually very nice. I'm continually surprised by how PLEASANT most rehearsal studios are these days. I spent a LOT of time in them during the 1990s when they were uniformly cold, damp, smelly and AWFUL, but these days they tend to be CLEAN and even have GEAR in them that works. Kids today with their habitable rehearsal space and functioning equipment, they don't know how lucky they are!

Tim had brought his CAJON and various other bits of kit with him, although it turned out he hadn't brought the RIGHT bits of kit, so had to manhandle it all together somehow from furniture. Meanwhile Tom and I set up our respective recording devices in separate parts of the room, to try and get a decent spread of sound, and prepared to record, with me standing next to Tim, singing and playing guitar as a GUIDE.

After the first take Tim very gently suggested that I sing NOT QUITE SO LOUDLY - partly so that we would get as clean a take of the drums as possible, and partly because the end of the song has a KEY CHANGE so the less of my inability to a) play the chords b) hit the notes which made it onto the recording, the better! I thus found myself basically stood behind him, WHISPERING the words as we went along, which actualy seemed to work quite well. We then did the same for ANOTHER song (details of which are UNDER WRAPS at present) before settling into a brief PRACTICE and then heading off to South London, where we were due to play a gig at The Gladstone Arms.

As previously discussed it is a LOVELY pub, made all the lovelier than the arrival, just a few minutes after us, by Mr FA Machine. The Validators were COMPLETE at last!

The sound was done by a very nice, very enthusiastic, very DILIGENT Romanian chap, and sounded GRATE. We had a good old NATTER and were joined by various CHUMS and lovely people, and then at about 8pm we went on stage (or "corner of the room") and did THIS:

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

Can We Be Friends?

Have A Drink With Us (Drink Doch Eine Met)

Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid

Two Nights, One Pub

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

We Did It Anyway

It sounded, by all accounts, DEAD GOOD - as I say, the soundman was GRATE, and playing in that formation, with all acoustical instruments modestly amplified through the same PA, alongside Tim's Cajon set-up, means that we can actually HEAR each other and react accordingly. There was one GRATE bit where a song started too slowly, and I remembered that if I just sped up a bit then everyone else would too! BAND SYNERGY!

I must admit that I did get a bit distracted by a table sat right in front of us who insisted on HAVING A VERY LOUD DRUNKEN CONVERSATION throughout, but that is more me than them. I am out of practice at Not Taking It Personally! Otherwise everybody seemed to be well into it, even those who did not know us, and I was once more especially pleased with the end bit to Two Nights, One Pub, which is dead good.

After our set there was more chat before it was time to say farewell to The Validators as they set off back to The Midlands. It really is DEAD NICE when we have a couple of gigs in close proximity like this, as you get to carry on conversations from last time and, indeed, discuss how GRATE it had been the last time too! Talk of our Christmas Curry hung in the air as we went our separate ways, but hopefully there will be time for a get together again before that!

posted 2/10/2018 by MJ Hibbett

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