Yesterday we gigged again. Another wedding.
Have I already mentioned I love playing at weddings?
This one was on a cricket field in Tickhill, in a marquee. That always means good things – a marquee has great sound because there are just no reflections to deal with.
So we arrived at 2pm (as I found later, this was far too early – we could have arrived at 3 and still been set up in time; but it wasn’t a problem. The club itself was great and it was lovely sitting outside in the warm September sun as a last little breath of summer came and gave us a reminder it wasn’t too far gone.
The marquee itself was about 60ft long, with a decent size stage and a 32A power supply laid to exactly the right place on stage – it looked absolutely lush!
Dennis arrived shortly after me, and we started to load in and set up straight away – and after getting the generator started (the keys were “missing” but it turned out they were in it all along!).
Jake was just post-operative so he didn’t lift anything, but being able to reverse up to the back of the stage and load in from both sides of the stage at once made life nice and easy and we weren’t tripping over each other as we were setting up.
So set up and soundchecked and with over 3 hours to kill, what do you do? Well Dennis went home, and the rest of us sat outside and enjoyed the weather. Watching the sun set was rather nice it has to be said!
The outside temperature was actually in the low 20’s which was great for just sitting around, although you can tell it’s now Autumn. As the sun began to set the chill came very rapidly.
The happy couple arrived and their guests arrived at about half past five and the marquee really started to fill up.
They ate first, and then our first set began. It was a suited up one, and of course having a new phone I had to take some rather splendid photos of us. Craig showed off his new suit – bought reduced in Next (my favourite way of buying suits – reduced end of line because they’ve run out of jackets). It was very “Peaky Blinders” it has to be said, but I thought it suited him and looked good onstage (bold works onstage!).
I wore the teal suit, and took this rather splendid image using my front camera and the live focus mode.
The first set went pretty well. A few mistakes, but nothing major – apart from cutting short the Meghan Traynor song and missing out a huge section, for some weird reason?
After our first set, the second round of food was served – Pig in a bun – with cheese and crackers also available (yes, cheese and crackers – I was in my element!).
After eating too much cheese (can this be a thing?) and changing into my second set outfit (but not before trying on the leather jeans Craig had been in possession of for the last few years, which now had a chance of fitting me) we played the second set.
At 11 we finished and Jake took over doing his DJ thing – for about 25 minutes whilst we packed down the stage. This was interrupted by the best man telling everyone on the mic that due to noise complaints they had to move into the bar.
…I could have told them that in a Marquee you generally have to wrap up noise by 11, but it’s not my job!
I finally arrived home just before 1am and now I feel flat and lacking energy. Just as I always do the day after a gig.
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