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Current mood:  sore
APB Return to The Royal Exchange
January is a notoriously quiet month, a knock on effect from Christmas overspending. With this in mind we were back at The Royal Exchange in Lindford, wondering how many would brave the cold, and the bank manager, to come along. It was good when Theresa, the landlady, told us that we'd been requested by a few of the regulars! That kind of comment always bodes well for a good gig.
This time there'd been no disasters on the way in. We'd arrived in good time and were all set up very quickly and even got a soundcheck in before 8PM. The only issue now was my throat infection. I'd been croaking like a frog all morning and by the evening it still hadn't come back. Not the kind of thing you want to be dealing with when you're singing lead on a new number in the set that night. A quick pre-gig natter with Sarah, our former singer who'd brought along fresh victims for the APB experience, and we were ready for action.
The sound of Steve's drums fill the pub as we kick off with Razorlight's In The Morning. We go through the first set until the moment of truth - the new one. Our first airing of The Killers track All These Things That I've Done goes down very well, thankfully the voice manages to stay present and get most of it out with just a bit of growl. With an eye on the rest of the gig, it was a prudent move to cut out all the non-essential backing vocals to allow myself a fighting chance on the rest.
We finish the first set and take a 25 minute break. Apparently we "Really nailed two of those songs", which ones they were, we didn't get to find out, but nice to hear all the same. The crowd is happy, we're refreshed so it's back to work.
Second set starts off with some more modern numbers. Our reworking of Radiohead's High & Dry goes down well and it's into the oldies. We come up to our new experiment - two songs linked by another well known piece and it goes down an absolute storm. What songs were they? Well you'll have to come along and find out, won't you! We charge on into Get Back and an over-exuberant Jamie manages to lodge his E string under a pickup screw but rescuing to manage a respectable ending. Steve, as usual, flies through everything in an almost effortless manner - bloody show off! We finish with Road Runner and the crowd call for more.
With my gradual vocal depreciation to a bullfrog impression, we work a few numbers with Jamie improvising a few new lyrics as we went. We're also treated to the immense backing vocal abilities of Kev and Alistair and then comes the call of dread...
Now, those of you who know us are aware that we try and shy away from the standard tunes that 90% of covers bands do. We don't want to give you what you can hear from everyone - we aim to be a little different. The thing is, what's a band to do when it seems the entire pub is chanting Johnny B Goode...
It was reminiscent of the scene in Back To The Future as Jamie became Marty McFly and gave the rundown on how to play it - I'd never ever played it before! There were definite signs of some air guitar going on in the audience as Jamie fired out a solo that would make Chuck Berry proud - I'm sure I even saw some sparks coming off his fingers at one point.
We close out the night with one more track and we're done... or so we thought. Two hours of bouncing around like a loony certainly had taken it's toll on this fat man but someone once said "The customer is always right", and when I find them, I'll thank them personally ;) So, one last blast of Girls Aloud's Love Machine ends the night on a silly tone.
Many thanks to all of you who turned up. A big thank you to Sarah for helping pack away as well, much appreciated mate.
We're back at The Royal Exchange on April 19th. The next gig promises to be an absolute stormer. Will Johnny B Back? We'll just have to wait and see.
Alfie
APB
9:39 PM
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