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04-Dec-2007

46664 - show day

After a quite relaxed couple of days run through we arrived in Johannesburg to quite a stressful few days.

We flew in, and then went right to work in the Ellis Park stadium. All our gear had got there the day before so we set about making it work. All was fine until we got into position to play as the band and PG turned up.

We were placed on a huge rotating stage that only let us go into position ten minutes before, so we were just not ready in time. Suddenly Angie and I found that we were missing some important sounds on the keyboards. I set about trying to fix that, this involved calling our main keys tech Jeff Allison in Boston. We also were still missing inputs for the rest of the band' so that was holding us up too. Then Peter's radio that he uses to listen to the band and monitor himself started to drop out... so lots of problems.

We then got the Soweto choir on stage with us and started to run through 'Don't Give Up' and 'Biko'. Angie was now singing the main vocal part and doing it with great power and emotion. The choir, who we worked with last time, were great. All the problems we had just had disappeared as they sang and brought a great feel to the last two songs. We finished that run through, packed up and went back to the hotel for a proper rest.

Next day we went in early to recheck our gear. We checked all the inputs and sorted out the problems from the day before. I had got the keyboards working, thanks to Jeff, the night before back at the hotel. So here we were for 46664 ready to do the show.

It did not go as planned, but it went OK...

The main problem was that PG's radio dropped out all through the show. This caused huge problems for him as you could imagine. It's basically listening to headphones that just go on and off all the time and you lose where you are in the song, so 'Red Rain' was a huge mess. It settled down a bit, but would not stop completely so every song the radio dropped here and there, but he gig over all was OK.

We were there to help promote 46664 and as the whole show was concerned it worked well. We were on time and got off on time. If we had gone on later, thinking about it, it would have given us more atmosphere. The choir again made up for the problems. To finish on Biko was fantastic and you felt all the people in the stadium agree with their response.

The band and PG stayed to hear Nelson Mandela speak about the the 46664 foundation and the tasks ahead. "Its in our hands" was the theme for the day, this the first of December being World AIDS Day. In retrospect we should have played after the speech, in the dark and with the audience more warmed up, but you know what ... it didn't rain !!!!

Red Rain
No Self Control
Solsbury Hill
Signal To Noise
Dont Give Up
Biko

So no more shows till, I guess, next year, when we should definitely have some new songs to try out. Things in the studio have been slow of late, but now it's getting a lot more focused and busy again.

I love being busy.

02-Dec-2007

46664 set-list

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29-Nov-2007

46664

We have had a good bit of fun the last few days at Real World. The band have been here to run through a 45 minute set for a 46664 show we are doing this Saturday.

We set up in The Big Room in a horseshoe shape and had our new monitor engineer, Tristan, up on the rooms stage area. The crew is a lot smaller as it is only this one show, so it's myself, our new assistant Mat along with Chris and Ben. So if anything really goes wrong we will be really pushed to sort it out. Should be fine though.

We are playing 2 songs that have not been heard since the last big tour. We ran through a longer setlist that was about an hour and a half long. Peter just got it down in time, at the last minute on the final run through yesterday.

We will do a few songs with the Soweto gospel choir. It was great to be in The Big Room too, our normal room was booked out. We could have done more shows with all this effort for one, but Peter really wants to get more studio work done so this will be the last show for a while I think. The gear has gone and we follow it on Thursday. Run-through on Friday and the big show at 7pm on Saturday . It's going to be a great and moving show, being in Johannesburg with Nelson Mandela for worlds AIDS day.

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25-Jul-2007

Six Fours France

Windy windy windy .. this one was almost pulled due to the fact there was too much wind coming in from the sea. It did make it a very nice location to be in for the day even though we has to cross load all the gear, as Steve and Brian could not get their trucks to the stage area.

All the crew were really worried about this one, the P.A. was swinging around, at one point in the day you could barley stand up straight due to the force of the wind, but we got through it as when it came to show time it calmed right down.

Levon our friendly Duduk player turned up once again to open the show with "The Feeling Begins " from Passion and then we were off, with a really great crowd. It made such a change to Monte Carlo. It felt like we were again back on track as a band.

It feels like we are all set set for WOMAD now. I hope the weather clears though back in the UK.

24-Jul-2007

What a weird show.

The gig was quite beautiful. We sound checked in this big theatre over looking the sea, then after dinner we came back and the whole place had changed. The roof had come off and the back windows had disappeared, not by accident however, we realized the whole place can open up to the sea.

So we settled in and looked forward to a cool intimate show on the smallest stage so far, almost the same size as our rehearsal room back in Box.

The front row fans were really great and really up for it, the problem was the rest of the room. They just were not really into it .. so it made for quite an odd gig. Also PG has just got a cold .. so he really needs to watch himself as WOMAD is at the end of the week and we need to be fighting fit for that.

It was great to have Mel back, we missed her so much. Dan Lavi had to get up on stage tonight and help her during 'Eyes' as her sound stopped working - he got it fixed just in time for her last phrase.

So now we pack-up over looking the moonlit sea...so different from the last week of nothing but rain...but as they said this-morning, it never rains in Monaco.

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