It was with some trepidation that we set up to play at The Lansdown pub in Lewes: there no stage, the rain was pouring down, and after much head scratching we concluded half the PA was kaput.
A few frantic phone calls later and Jamie’s girlfriend’s sister’s boyfriend Ben had provided a replacement. Simple! Now all we had to do was set up and soundcheck without a sound engineer…
All of the earlier hassle was soon forgotten however. We were playing two sets that night and although the first set took a little time to warm up, by the time Chris was switching over to electric guitar it was clear we had the growing audience’s attention. We’d rehearsed a ton of material, but luckily Chris is a prolific enough writer that we now have plenty to choose from.
We broke for a rest after 45 minutes, coming back with our current favourite cover version, Roy Orbison’s ‘In Dreams’. Finishing the night was exhausting; three big numbers in a row, starting with ‘Wicked Boy’, which the audience lapped up, urging us on with their grateful response through the frenzied ‘Amelia’ and ‘The Truth is Nothing’.
Not satisfied with an hour and a half of Salter Cane, they had us play an encore too, and another was being asked for even as we staggered away from our instruments!
So, thank you Lewes, for making us feel very welcome indeed. Now, next time, if you could just sort the weather out…
