It was a very busy week last week. I went to Spain for a few gigs. I slept in for my flight, so instead of getting a taxi to the airport I drove, checked in on time and flew to my destination.
A resort that was, to say the least a bit of a shit hole. The hotel was nice and the Rep assigned to look after me was helpful as he listened to me whinge about the amount of kids running around and that under no circumstances would I set foot on that stage if there was one child in the audience. I had a snooze and woke up in a much better mood. The place looked nicer by night, I had some good food and whiled away the hours before my gig having couple of beers.
The gigs themselves were fantastic. As the Madeleine story was hot in the news a lot of parents weren't using the baby listening service so a small (50/60+) crowd were there for late night cabaret. What can I say they got the Motormouth experience and loved it. Over the course of the next few days I started to recognise some of my punters and as the nights went on the crowd swelled. I'll definitely be going back.
In true Roughy style the bus taking me to the airport didn't turn up so I had an extra couple of days in the sun while my missus sorted out a return flight...oh dear!. Now most blokes getting themselves in that situation would be looking forward to a few deaf and dumb breakfasts, but no Lorri pulled out all the stops and got me home with a minimum level of fuss and no ear ache. She's an amazing woman.
So sandwiched in between a couple of Rugby league sporting dinners I had what I could only describe as one of the most challenging gigs of my career. When acts are described as "self contained" it means that we bring our own sound system when needed. that's not a problem, I don't own one as I never get asked to bring it any more. For a gig for a new agent I was asked to be self contained for a show in Liverpool. I borrowed one from my apprentice JS (thank you young 'un!) but on turning up at the gig it was in a very small room for roughly 30+ people. I wish it had been a big enough gig to warrant a PA system! It was a strange one. A corporate for a company that had been holding a week long conference in Liverpool for people from all over the world. They invited them to Anfield (a beautiful venue ) for dinner and entertainment. At least a fifth of my audience were American..oh dear again! The company organising the conference were lovely people, I had dinner with them as I nervously awaited being introduced, I knew what the pitfall were going to be, an intimate crowd, loads of Americans who wouldn't get my cultural references and me not being sure what levels of rudeness I could achieve. The gig itself was OK, that's all, just OK. The crowd were nice and sometimes forgiving of me, they could see what a difficult job it was. They laughed, they groaned they hissed when I was naughty but all in all I thought I did a decent job. However!...just as I write this, the agent has rang and said that he'd heard second hand that the client wasn't too happy. I'm not sure as yet but I shall keep you, dear reader informed.
FTM!
No comments:
Post a Comment