Last week we went to see a gig - an actual gig - at The Social. It was J Bernardt, and we were there with our pal and Recommender Of The Gig Mr J Tomlinson. I had been doing my REVISION over the past few weeks, as J Bernardt wasn't someone I was familiar with at all beforehand, and so the gig itself was dead good. That is my review of the gig!
There were all sorts of interesting things AROUND the gig which I would like to expand upon though, notably the fact that although J Bernadrt is not a big name in THIS country he IS in his native Belgium, where he's in the band Balthazar. THUS the fact that he was playing in a venue as small as The Social (a venue so small that even *I* have played there a couple of times!) was Quite Exciting to London's entire BELGIAN community who had turned up to see him. It was a bit like when I went to see The Beths a year ago and the room was PACKED with New Zealanders who had all apparently come to see "The Biths"!
It was SO very packed that we couldn't actually get into the gig room and ended up watching from the BAR at the far end, looking over the soundman's shoulder. THAT reminded me of when The Charlotte used to sell out gigs and there wouldn't be room for everybody to get in because they'd based their official capacity on the gig room AND the pub attached. However, it was all FINE this time because, it turned out, we could see AND hear where we were AND we were really handy for the bar. Also it gave us the chance to appreciate an exciting innovation in LIGHTING, as The Social has special coloured lights ON THE WALLS which spread all the way back to us. I have only ever seen this sort of thing in ADVERTS so it was dead exciting to be part of a gig where the walls THEMSELVES flashed and changed colour with the music. It was ACE!
As I say, the music was dead good too and it was - AS EVER - really good to have done the revision and know the tunes, which are now happily bouncing round my BRANE. It was a fab evening all round, especially with all the technical wizardry, and was topped off by the realisation that we were only five minutes away from The King & Queen, so headed their for some in-depth post-gig analysis. HOORAH!
