WalMan

On parking prices for stadium gigs, when #2 son and I went to the O2 for Dream Theater I was still non weight bearing on my left ankle but I drove anyway as I have an EV, so automatic and don’t need my left foot. I used the valet parking and probably would again as it really wasn’t that expensive, particularly if spread across four in a car. Drove past the trucks and up to the door, handed over the keys and went in. Leaving the car was waiting at the door and the drive out was fairly easy. A bit of a queue once we met the carparks exiting, but I’d do it again. For Stray Kids at White Hart Lane with my granddaughter I found a primary school that makes a bit of extra money for school funds by letting parking spaces for events that’s right next to the ground. £40 IIRC but a couple of minutes walk in and out, though you have to arrive a little earlier to miss road closures and we picked the wrong way out and got stuck at a road closure, but again worth it particularly if you have a car-full, easy access and gives a small school some much needed extra funds. Granddaughter was happy at the wait on the way out confusing the heck out of my Spotify algorithm finding K-Pop on Apple CarPlay 🤦🤣 Gig wise we tend not to do stadium gigs - DT at the O2 could possibly be the first gig of that size I have been to. More normally we are at smaller theatre or club gigs. Prices can get up a bit on occasion and paying an extra £2 or so for the ‘privilege’ of printing a ticket at home, or receiving it electronically to my phone is always galling.

A quiet one minus drummer as he had to take his dog to the vet for its final trip today 😢 So a quiet one to run through couple of new songs for key, one tweaked slightly from that originally planned - it may have been due to not pushing so vox hard on the night but it felt better changed. Took the Hard Puncher I picked up from Dood recently into the studio Hartke/Ampeg rig and it was sounding great. Nice clank even with me rolling more bass and less and less top - whoever used the amp last had treble full up and bass rolled way back 😳 Now I like top end bite but that was crazy. Good session working through arrangements and bv’s with loads of too and fro to sort things out. Our drummer has said in the past he’s not been used to how we sometimes work on stuff that in early days of a new song can be a chunk of time concentrating on finding an ending that works running different ideas to refine rather than necessarily just go route one slow down and final splat. That works sure but sometimes it’s good to try other ways, or how to get to the final slow and splat 🙂

Went through my leads bag to get out the Bass Revolt, power supply for that and lead to sit on the sofa and noodle on the Thunderpuncher 😳 while the F1 was on. Guess what…there was the Palmer power supply 🤦🏼‍♂️

Not a bad night last night and local to me, though sadly a bit quiet with an Oasis tribute a couple of hundred yards one way and another band down the road the other. Landlady apologetic but happy as she said she still took plenty of money over the bar. “We love having you here, you’re so professional” So we were playing to a small select bunch, but they were all enjoying themselves and singing along. Band was tight and the sound really good. Loads of compliments from those that were there which was nice. Used the usual rig of: FrankenJazz, Helix Effects, Darkglass Microtubes, BF BigBaby2. Shoes comfortable barefoot. As there was potentially a bit more space than usual I took the bigger pedalboard but the Palmer wall wart that I had at rehearsal on Monday wasn’t in my leads bag so reverted to the Helix. 😡 Must have a search for that or order a spare.

Office conference and we had Supershakers. Apologies if it was you and you had to suffer a bunch of pished tax accountants 🤣🍾🥂🎉

Hope you're feeling better soon! I was testing positive for a fortnight but no gigs as our vocalist was away on hols, and I missed one rehearsal for new stuff. Bad at the beginning with a bad headache, cough, catarrh & blocked sinuses and general meh. Finally tested negative on Saturday morning, which was just as well as I had a call for a last minute dep in the evening

18:40 tonight sat on the sofa wondering whether to get on with some private work while wifey watched the football or some cr@p horror movie on Amazon. 18:44 Facebook message “are you free tonight our bass player just cried off sick?” 19:15 car loaded and on the road to the gig which was thankfully only a few miles down the road. I depped with the band last probably 8-10 years ago so there were some standards in the set and a few I had heard but not played. I took my iPad and found a few on iReal, the rest it was watching the guitarist or keyboard players left hand and busk it. No major clangers and a good drummer (also a dep but has been doing a few with them so he was up to speed) who was easy to lock in with. The keyboard player chucked in a final one not discussed but I sort of knew it and it was pretty straightforward so got through ok. We talked through the set before each one, did a quick yes/no/swap out and call keys during and “no one died” 😁 Only a smallish crowd but they were enjoying themselves and dancing so all in all what was going to be a quiet night in became an unexpected night out playing a load of songs I’d not done in a while, or ever. FrankenJazz, Helix Effects, Aguilar Tonehammer 350 and BF BigBaby2

Ooooh had another thought... somewhere here I have a Kent Armstrong pup in a Wal pup cover 🤔

Looking good 😍. Not long now 😁

Wired is less hassle but another lead to trip over (unless the playing area is so small you can’t move) IMO. It has taken me a while but having bit the bullet and got moulded plugs and a better wireless system I really don’t like to be without them now. The initial outlay is more but averaged out over four years is really not so bad

Saw Nik Kershaw on the first night of his Lyrics & Musings tour. Great night and shows the songs well in a very stripped back largely acoustic show with some light looping and tracks flown in from a laptop (I think though it was also running the screen behind. Tickets were a Christmas present including meet and greet. Unfortunately we didn’t get information on that and missed it, which was a shame but sounds like we weren’t the only ones. That said it may have been as well as I started feeling fluey Thursday, got worse Friday and “oh joy” did a test and have C19 🤧🤢😷

Very nice. Perhaps you can subcontract with Paul to help out with his waiting list!!

At least it wasn't the Park Avenue split with only half the lines from Don't Go Breaking My Heart 🤣 - sadly I can't find the video. I am still mates will all former bandmates, indeed the drummer comes back and sits in with the band (that has been going yonkers) on occasion.. We even get together with the original guitarist from years ago and have a session banging out the old tunes. Still tight with all of them and able to catch changes/mistakes on the fly with a quick look or nod Back in the day said guitarist and original vocalist could clash at times, eventually guitar went, we kept going with a couple of other guitarists, then vocals guitars left and we carried on for a bit with another guitar & vocals, but eventually drums had had enough and went & I followed. Roll on some years and drums vocals & I got together for a showcase with the guitarist from the band the drummer had ended up with and that continued for many years 'til the vocalist emigrated and we enrolled the vocals from the band drummer & guitarist had been in during the interim before the showcase gig. Drums has moved on but we still all get together for parties, Christmas, and sadly most recently funerals Pretty much all splits were amicable though I have memories of difficult moments with the original lot as guitar & vox clashed heads. Did a gig around Easter time. Guitarist thought it would be a good idea to give the audience eggs and got some bags of the candy coated eggs for the vocalist to hand out. Vocalist just hurled handfuls towards the bemused crowd. Guitarist had a hissy and walked off. Thankfully I think it was pretty much the end of the night. Girlfriends throwing their 6p in and screams of "Kev's the worst one" ... a phrase that still gets bandied about on occasion 40 years later 😄 Also had a difficult one with the guitarist in a club band I played with. He was in a bad place and had started drinking...a lot. Driving him and the drummer home from a gig one night he got us to stop by a club so he could go in and get some ciggies. Gone for ages to the point where I was about to say "**** it" leave him to it and tell the doorman to let him know he could find his own way home. But even with him, now he's settled down many years later, I do the occasional dep.

😍 I love a bit of graphite weave 🥰