At The Central

Well, here we are in the last throes of summer and you can feel an autumnal nip in the air as we load the car for a gig at The Central in Parkstone, Poole. This will be our first time playing this venue and we are not quite sure what to expect. We meet the sound-guy Alfie ‘Bringing a good crowd with you?’ he asks ‘Well, no’ we reply ‘maybe one or two of our regular followers but it’s s rather out of the way for most of our lot’ ‘Hmm’ says Alfie ‘This should be interesting then’ And how right he was! At 9.05 the audience was rather thin! So bowed but not broken we decided desperate situations require desperate means. Alan and I went down to the well-attended public bar and invited them all upstairs to our gig. ‘Hmm. This should be interesting’ says Wally the bartender ‘None of the locals have ever set foot in the music room’ Well clearly there was something in the air. Because, bless ‘em, they all came up, beers in hand and became our impromptu audience for the night! And what an audience! And what a night! They were warm, they were appreciative, they cheered, clapped and hollered at the end of each song; they jigged and tapped their feet, and at one point we asked them ‘What do you want next? A cover or one of ours?’ ‘One of yours’ they shouted back . So we played ‘Spellbound’ and Alfie put some incredible echoey reverb on the vocals so that the words floated and hung in the room and it was just magical and they all leapt up and cheered as the last notes died away. And then we were on to the real lively foot-tappy stuff and out came all the percussion instruments and this audience, who hadn’t expected to spend their evening listening to live music, picked up the eggs, the tambourines, the rainsticks, even the triangle and the bells on a stick and they joined in with gusto and even in time!
As we were leaving, a friendly voice said ‘You guys sounded phenomenal’. ‘Thank you’ I said ‘ Who are you?’
‘I’m Adam’ the friendly voice replied
‘You’re the guy who booked us’ I said ‘Look, I’m sorry we didn’t bring our own audience and that we came downstairs and nicked your customers’
‘I’m very glad you did’ replied Adam ‘They loved it. They’re all saying it’s the best night they’ve had in ages’
‘We’d love to play again if you’ll have us’
‘Have you? My diary is at your disposal. Phone me next week.’
Rest assured Adam, we will!
Thank you The Central for a great night!

Maybe see you there next time?

Charlie x