We're Having A Whale of a Time!

Well, it's already Wednesday evening half-way through Save The Whale Week and I'm writing this in the back of the bus about an hour outside Newcastle. What a great week we're having! It all started on Sunday evening with a gig at the Half-Moon in Putney. It really is a lovely venue - friednly, intimate, great acoustics and a brilliant sound engineer in Doon from the Moon! We took a small group with us - big thanks to Chas for driving the bus - and just had an excellent night. Redvers Bailey, a young extremely talented singer songwriter opened up the evening, and got everything off to a flying start. We had terrific support from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society in the form of Cherylle and James who distributed information about WDCS and the Stop Bloody Whaling Campaign, passed round the collection boxes, danced, jigged and shook their eggs and generally had a good time! With a sit down, listening audience we had an opportunity to do some of the songs we don't always get to play suich as Song for a Boy and Beyond Repair which was great for us but of course we still ended up with a bit of a party going on! I fell off the stage during Until Today - how uncool is that? - possibly the highlight of the night. (when we're rich and infamous and I'm answering the Observer questionnaire and they get to the bit 'What's you're most embarassing moment?' ..I'll be able to tell them!) We got back about 2.30 in the morning and were up at 5.30 to do an interview and live session for BBC Radio Solent's Breakfast Show. Now, we'd already discussed with them what they'd like us to do. The idea was they'd play the CD of Red Waters; we'd have a bit of a chat about Save The Whale Week and Stop Bloody Whaling and then we'd finish off by playing Morning Glory - very apt for a 7.30/7.45am slot we thought. Anyway, we had a quick run through of Morning Glory in the kitchen with a cuppa just to warm up the old vocal cords; arrived at the studio; had another quick rehearsal of Morning Glory in the waiting room so we were all primed and ready for it; went into the studio; Adam the presenter chatted to us, put on the CD of Red Waters, let it play for about 20 seconds, stopped it then announced on air 'Now that was just a taster of Red Waters. In a few minutes, Alan and Charlie are going to perform the live acoustic version. What?? ***!!!? Talk about in at at the deep end. But we did it and it was fine! Raced back home to get ready for our gig in Saxon Square in Christchurch at lunchtime. We'd arranged to meet the Noizy Boys, who were doing our sound, in the Square at about 11.00am. It was raining; we had no cover and no contingency plans for the weather.But we crossed our fingers, hung on in there, set up between showers..and d'you know what? The minute we were ready to start playing, the sky brightened, the sun came out and Monday afternoon turned into a glorious summer's day. Chris Carnegy from Original 106 came and did a live report from the gig - which Sam our violinist heard at 3 o'clock in the morning when she was driving home (how rock n roll is that). We had a fantastic afternoon; we drew a real crowd and some of the die-hards who had come to Putney the night before, came to support us in Christchurch too. It actually turned into a magical afternoon. So much so that when we got home, we just had to open a few bottles of wine in the garden to celebrate! The next day found us at Hounsdown School in Totton to do an after-school gig for parents and students. This was probably one of the most extraordinary but fun events we've done. Instead of just playing, their teacher, Mr Weller, asked if we would talk to the children about our songwriting and how we put a song together. It's certainly given us some ideas for working with young people in the future. An early night and it was back in the bus for 9.00am as we had a live interview with BBC Radio Oxford at midday. We wanted to leave ourselves plenty of time in case we ran into traffic problems or got lost. However, Malcolm our bass player has a new toy - a satnav. And, bloody hell, it works. Unless Alan's driving, of course. He insists on saying 'I'm sure we should be taking this road ...' completely ignoring poor little satnav who was nearly exploding with frustration. but three days of getting to places unruffled and on time have convinced him of the wonders of technology. So most of today has been spent travelling stopping off at Radio Oxford and then BBC Radio Nottingham for the drive-time show finally arriving in Newcastle at about 10.00pm. Here in Newcastle we are staying in the most beautiful apartment with views over the water and the park with a church steeple to the left; castle ruins in front; and a lighthouse to the right. We have to say a huge big thank you to Anne and Richard from Shoofly for making us so welcome. A curry and a beer at close on midnight and I reckon that's then end of an almost perfect couple of days! BBC Radio Newcastle and a gig in the town centre tomorrow.... If you want to know more about Save The Whale Week and Stop Bloody Whaling log on to http://www.stateofundress.com or http://www.wdcs.org Red Waters is available as a download single with all proceeds to the WDCS from iTunes and FOPP (http://www.foppdigital.co.uk)
Charlie