Nothing says "On The Road" like meeting Mr S Hewitt at 12:30pm for a cheeky pint in The Euston Tap before heading off to take our SHOWBUSINESS to another town. I know this because that's exactly what happened to me on Saturday lunchtime!
Post-pint we toddled off to get our train and arrived in BUXTON three hours later, where we were due to perform the latest preview of Hey Hey 16K for The Buxton Fringe. Laden down with GEAR we stomped across town to our hotel, which turned out to be Shall We Say A Little Old Fashioned. Steve pointed out that the bar only lacked a MAJOR to be sitting in it, though over the course of the weekend we did see several candidates for the job. There was a PLAQUE stating that it had been opened in 1987, and INDEED the accomodation only lacked a ZX Spectrum to make them mirrors of my own teenage bedroom.
We unloaded, watched a bit of telly (TOUR Tradition) then headed back across town to The Hydro, our venue. We booked it MONTHS ago (just before New Year, in fact) and I'd been a bit worried about whether they'd REMEMBER us, so had been relieved to see we were definitely in the Fringe programme. However, when we arrived we found that though they knew we were coming they weren't entirely sure what to do with us. The Hydro is a CAFE which, at this time of day, was pretty much FULL of people having their tea. It was suggested that we set up in the corner but a) I didn't really want to disturb people whilst they were eating and b) couldn't see how we'd charge on the door if DINERS were still coming in. It was a bit worrying, to be honest, but after some thought we decided to do the show in the small side area next to the bar. It wasn't IDEAL - we were between the bar, the kitchens and the LOOS so there was a lot of traffic and noise - but it was at least its own area.
The trouble is, as I later discussed with my colleague, that THIS is exactly how gigs GET you. Every time I end up in a situation like this I think "Hey! This probably means that the gig'll turn out to be AMAZING!" and usually they're NOT, but every now and again it DOES happen like that and you end up spending another DECADE doing gigs and THIS was one of those - for LO! it was BLOODY GRATE!
The audience all fitted nice and snugly into the room, including (we discovered) two reviewers, who therefore made up 20% of the audience. In Reading the level of reviewers was 10% - this must have been what it was like being in a ROMO band. Anyway, the audience were WELL up for it and LARFED and sang along and were generally a DELIGHT throughout. This was handy as the show was not without mistakes, but they took that as All Part Of The Fun and together we had a FANTASTIC time.
After all THAT excitement all that was left to do was pack up and go for an ACTUAL CURRY (DELICIOUS) and a couple of beers at The Buxton Tap. A rather lovely end to a very lovely day - with still a day to go!
