The band has been asked to play a gig in Messanges, one of three this year. Not many, but losing Michel and my replacing the bass player has meant a lot of learning, and we didn’t want to sign up for anything until we felt ready.
Four weeks before, we tested the sound system in Jean Marc’s garage; it worked fine, but would need testing in a bigger space. For all the gigs we’ve played since I joined the band, we’ve had Pascal, a proper sound man, and all his kit. It was great; we turned up, plugged in, tuned up and did a sound check – so easy. But Pascal’s circumstances have changed and he’s no longer doing the same work, meaning that we now have to supply our own kit, which hadn’t been used in years. We’ll also have to manage without a sound man; nobody to balance the sound as we go along. Ade and Jean Michel have pods to provide different guitar effects and have some control over their volume, but we singers have to control our volume by adjusting the distance from the mics, something I still don’t find easy.
Three weeks to go; we booked Jean Marc’s village hall, where we spent ages setting up, laying what felt like miles of cables and plugging stuff in. I learnt to differentiate between jacks and XLR’s, which cables to use for the mics, the order in which to put stuff out (instruments last); I’ll do the lightweight jobs and leave the heavy lifting to the lads. As we didn’t have monitor amps, we’d use an in-ear system. Once it was ready, Ade moved sliders and turned knobs on the mixing desk till he was happy with the balance.
Finally we were ready to go, to turn up the volume enough to fill the room; the sound was horrendous! Apparently as bad in the auditorium space as through our in-ear monitors! Neither of us singers could hear ourselves and the instrumental sound was a horrible mush. Adrian tried all sorts, but had to conclude that the speakers were too old and would only work as monitors. We spent another hour packing it all back into Jean Marc’s van and despondently went home.
Jean Michel called Pascal and arranged to borrow his speakers, we booked the room again for the following weekend; with just two weeks to go, it needed to work. Pascal’s speakers need a different sort of plug, but at last it was ready to try. Adrian worked to get the balance right, so that everyone could hear themselves as well as everyone else. It took a while to get used to it, but I was beginning to feel more comfortable by the end of the practice.
Michel, our ex-lead singer turned up to listen; his tinnitus is bad, so he was wearing earplugs and ear defenders, but it was great to see him again. He took videos of some of the songs on his phone; the sound isn’t great, but there’s one we might be able to put on our YouTube channel.
At last we could rehearse and everyone played really well, even me (I hate being the weakest link). Being in unfamiliar surroundings often throws me, but this time I managed to keep my concentration and Michel said that what he could hear sounded good, which was a great boost for our self confidence. By 6.30pm we were all flagging; it had been full-on since 1pm, so we packed everything back into the van and Adrian and I set off on our journeys home, leaving Jean Michel and Jean Marc to unload into the studio.
By the time I got home, at 8 pm, I was exhausted, but it felt as though we’d made progress. Once this gig is over, we’ll have to look at buying a new sound system, we can’t rely on borrowing from Pascal all the time.
In amongst all the work, I completely forgot to take photos, sorry!