Just recovered... I think :)

Well... Janeiro gigs demand more than a couple of lines :)

That quick post (done from the passenger's seat of the car as we sped around the roads of Surrey and Berkshire) from the P910 might have been a little quick ;)

It was a great gig. The guys at the venue were fantiastic: we actually got a rider we didn't ask for(!) when they delivered a case of bud, a case of J20 and a case of spring water, all chilled, to the dressing room (yes, a dressing room, and right next to the stage with a door onto it as well!). We were nicely lubricated before we went on... I abstained until after the gig as ever, when I laid into a bud or three.

Soundcheck went really well: Larry, the top fella who books and mixed the acts, did a fine job of mixing us on the night - and agrees that we need a tame sound engineer of our very own who does our mixing and knows the songs, so he can whack up this channel and that during solos, etc. We must have run through 5 or 6 tracks soundchecking! He revealed later that his sevret is levels, not EQ'ing, which must be the mark of an experienced engineer: that ranks as one of the best sounds I think we've ever had! I actually had an onstage monitor, which was a revelation... and slightly offputting :) Usually I can hear myself enough through my earplugs (which I'm totally used to wearing after so many years of trying to protect my hearing) that I stay roughly on pitch. Anyhow, I digress (as ever) - Larry revealed later it's all in the levels - ironically though, the Warwick Head pumped out too much level for his desk: he needed a DI to bring it down some: too hot! I'll remember that and buy a DI box I reckon.

So we killed a little time visiting Cafe Piccolo in Farnham, which I can recommend - but watch out for too many capers on the pizza and maybe a little bit too much vinegar in the salad dressing :) I posted a message to the janeiro yahoo group about that earler....

So we got back to the venue, and people are arriving. There's the luvly rider of juices and booze and water we can stay hydrated with, I performed my usual pre-gig ritual (very cleansing, say no more) and wasn't nervous after that, we do a big "Go Janeiro" with Neil F in the dressing room and finalise a setlist for a shortish 30 minute set with encore, and wait to be told what the final song before we go on is (DJs were on that night). Good music in there too on thursday nights: a real nice mix of old style stuff with occasional new bits: I grooved down to Old Jamiroquai from the first album while propping up the bar after we came off stage!

And we got some good feedback from the gig too. Lots of people saying they liked our blend of styles: someone noticed the latin influences, like the rock angle, etc - explicitly mentioning that they hadn't seen anything like us around, which is great.

Larry said we'd got the best reaction of a first-time-there band he'd ever seen, which is a real accolade!

I've got to go come up with some more content for the Janeiro website now... so that'll have to do.

Biggest memory of the night: the lesbian and the gay guy kissing in the front row while we played, which apparently is a good indicator of how hot the audience thought our music was :) Take a trip over the the janeiro site and look at the pics of the night if you fancy...!

A