New beginnings, fresh starts and lessons to learn.

George

If I am honest, and there's no point in being otherwise, the first night at The Arnold Arms for the Open Music Collective was a bit of a shock. It was a fantastically busy night with lots of performers and audience members creating a real buzz. So firstly, I would like to apologise for the poor sound delivered to the pub PA. We were made very aware by a number of people, but with it being a very busy first night were unable to get it right at the off. It did get a little better towards the end of the night as we began to understand what was happening, and it will be much better next time. The new venue presented a number of challenges for us, some of which we have still to overcome; and we will. A bit of reflection over the bank holiday weekend has inspired some thoughts that will improve things.

Allan, photo courtesy of Tony Wilding

Lew Bear slates drivers
of white vans

Shirley and I had grown quite comfortable at The George, we knew the room and had, over time, got a fairly good idea of the set up for the regular performers. We coped well when Maggie introduced the metal furnishings and still managed to fill the back room on a regular basis even though the temporary managers unsettled things. The equipment and stage setting had developed organically. We had fine tuned the setting up and packing away, and while it was a busy night and we rarely had more than two minutes to talk to our friends, we enjoyed ourselves and would talk on the late drive back to Rugby about the evening's events, notable performances and how we had done. The drive home from The Arnold in the early hours of Saturday morning was a bit more like a therapy session. Anger management techniques came in handy. We've had some lovely feedback since, and an excellent night with MDF at The Red Lion, Crick, helped Shirley to restore some confidence in the desk.

Nigel Lewis was unsure 

Steve Edgar Photo courtesy of Tony Wilding

The last 'Night of Lurve' was a sad night for us, as we found out that our tenure at The George, after many years, had come to an end; and as both of us had been unwell since the new year, Shirley more so and still not fully recovered, we didn't feel that we'd done the night justice or managed it as well as we might. The blog for The Night of Lurve will be posted on the original Kilsby Open Music Collective Blog. Two months off had done us the world of good, and we were ready to shift the gear and get back into the swing of things.

Dulcet Bob Deluce

Acoustically, The Arnold Arms is a very different space, and, with the performance area being at the corner we were concerned that audience involvement might be limited. We were also invited to share our output with the internal sound system. This was where things got a bit difficult.

Paddy Wex has trouble
with a hungry dog

There were two fundamental problems with the desk set up that, when hooked up to the pub system, caused us problems. The first was that in order to provide an output to the pub mixer, we took an auxiliary output, which was set up independently to the main mix. This meant that for every change of instrument and variation of vocal style and volume, as Shirley adjusted the faders, the pub output didn't reflect the front of house mix. Hence some of the vocals were very quiet and some of the guitars were very load if you were sat at the edges of the room. The second problem was that the speaker gain was too high, and this meant that the range of mix was forced towards the bottom of the slider, limiting Shirley's ability to adjust. Plenty of 'help' was on offer, some of which was more welcome than other, and we would like to express our appreciation to Craig, who was brilliant. Shirley won't be at June's Open Music Night because she will be sunning herself in Grand Canaria so Craig will be invaluable as I attempt to look after the performance area and the desk by myself.

Sandi & Tugrul

As the list of performers began to grow rapidly, and space and seating began to disappear, it became apparent that there would be no second half, and the number of songs would be limited to just two each. Fortunately, a couple of OMC regulars were absent, otherwise we'd have been there until after midnight.

So, on to our performers and what they gave us was pure gold.

Our performers and their songs:

George (that's me) opened the evening's performances with two self-penned songs. The first from last year, 'Holding The Butterfly', a song about possessiveness and control; the second, a very new song only performed for the second time, 'Running With Scissors'. The last time, at Napton, it was a bit rushed. I was much happier with it this evening.

Allan was second to the stage, and he provided the first of many sing along songs. His first, The Spinning Wheel and then the well known and much loved Ralph McTell classic 'Streets of London'.

MDF needed a bit more room (photo courtesy of
Kristy)

Lew Bear offered two songs that the Kilsby contingent were familiar with. His first was a delightful dig at the driving habits of a certain type of driver, 'White Van Man'. I don't think he was singing about me, but I'm sure I've had my moments. His second was the tale of the 'Mad Old Girl' whose life was so much more than appears when you see her at the bar.

Nigel Lewis, was another performer that writes his own material. The first of his songs is also well known to quite a few of the audience, 'I'm Not Sure Any More'. His second song was one that was new to me and I missed the title. He described it as another relationship song and I think that it might be called 'Bitter Sweet'.

Sing-Along-Steve Edgar loves to have people join in when he performs and tonight he offered two well known songs encouraging lots of audience participation; Delametry's 'Nothing Ever Happens', and the universally recognised Animals''House of The Rising Sun'. No one could resist that one.

Sandi and Tugrul, had a couple of new offerings for the new venue, at least as far as I was concerned. Their repertoire continues to extend and this evening they performed 'Give Me Your Shoulder To Cry On', which might have been a Tommy Page song and Kitty Kallen's 'Little Things Mean A Lot'. The restriction on number of pieces meant that we didn't get the benefit of Sandi's recorder, but hopefully it will be out at the next evening in June.

Hats off to Alison and Dave

Paddy Wex was at his fantastically humorous best with his first song about Les The Pegleg Pirate, and his litany of misfortune. This was followed by one of Paddy's dog related ditties; a song about a dog that ate everything with amusing and disastrous consequences.

It was good to see Bob Deluce, at our opening night. His first song hinted at his Liverpool roots, a song so filthy it was banned by the BBC in 1957, 'Dirty Maggie May'. I think his second was Canned Heat's 'Going Up Country' because I'm sure I caught the line 'I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away .... can't stay'.

Dangerous Derrick for once was
the least trouble to set up

Dave and Alison Fisher, were splendid in their matching hats, and just as splendid in their delivery of Fisherman's Friends No Hopers, Jokers and Rogues and Simon and Garfunkel's 'Feelin' Groovy'.

Six members of MDF provided one of their favourites, The Waterboys', 'Fisherman's Blues', and then, especially for Tea Chest Brian, The Beach Boys' 'Sloop John B'. Fortunately Tracey was missing, as there wasn't enough room on stage for all seven of us. I'll have to make sure that that is not the case for June..

Dangerous Derrick Meyer, and The Mothership, played a couple of Eagles classics, and provided more opportunity for audience participation with 'Hotel California' and 'Lyin' Eyes'. For once, Derrick was one of the easiest to set up, and because he only had one input, he was one of the best sounding throughout the pub on the night. He was playing at The Leif, Leamington, on the Saturday night and Shirley and I were intending to go, but after the very late night and a full day with our grandchildren, we drove through Leamington at 7pm heading directly to bed.

Amy's first performance went
down a storm.

Amy made her stage debut with a cracking ukelele version of Greenday's 'Wake Me Up When September Comes'. When I think about my first public performance, and don't remember doing as well as this. It is great to have accomplished performers at our Open Music Nights, but this is what it is all about, providing a supportive space to cut performance teeth.

Neil and Pete

Clifton's Pete and Neil played Chicago's If You Leave Me Now. Pete had his tightest pants on to reach those high notes, fortunately there was plenty of audience support. Their second was the wonderful The Killers', 'Are We Human Or Are We Dancer'. Pete hosts a regular jam night at The Bull Clifton, on the third Tuesday of the month. It's a friendly and gentle night that ended up with a superb set on the sage at Clifton Fete last year.

Andrew stopped the pub with his
Four Seasons and Jealousy

Andrew stopped the pub in its tracks. We weren't ready to incorporate his sound system, but next time, and I hope that there will be one, I'll have the right adapter and get a lead in to to the pub PA, because we were in for a treat. His first piece, accompanied by a backing track of piano, was Vivaldi Four Seasons and then he played Jalouise, Jealousy Tango, a piece made famous by Grapelli and Menuhin.

Steve and Kirsty performed something by a band called Lighthouse, but I didn't catch the title and then, their second performance was a fabulous version of Amy McDonald's Where You Gonna Sleep Tonight

Kirsty & Steve

Steve stayed on stage as Matt and Pete delighted the crowd now gathered in front of the stage with The Fratellis'' 'A girl like you is irresistable', 'stray cat strut', and a medley of Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive' and The Pogues' '500 miles'.

Matt and Pete brought the house
down at the end of the night

If tonight was anything to go by, The Open Music Collective will settle very nicely in to The Arnold Arms, and I hope that as the night continues to develop and mature it will become one of the best local Open Mic nights in the county; an Open Music Night to remember.

We are back at The Arnold Arms on Friday 7th June.