The Appleby, Burton on Trent

Apart from the satisfaction of playing at a venue, where they care about music and who is playing it is that they have in-house PA. One of the early feelgood factor moments came when David and I arrived and realised that we didn't have to unload 6k of PA out of the van and set it up in under an hour. The second feelgood factor came when we realised that we didn't have to unload even half the van to get to David's Hartke bass stack - the bass player out of Thracia (sorry, can't remember his name) came equipped with a nifty and good sounding 4x10 so the Hartke head was plonked on that. Unluckily, in a sense, I did have to unload my guitar gear and I must confess it was a little grandiose but hey, if you've go it flaunt it - Mesa Boogie 2 x 12 and 4 x 12 were stacked on top of the amp flightcase and the mesa Nomad perched on top. It was too tall to get the rack tuner on top and I tell you what, it growled and sounded great. Very little master volume needed to be dialled in and shifting acres of air helped tame the Heritage semi from feeding back and boy did it growl - although I have to admit that I probably had it a little too loud as I suspect that the Sharon's vocal mic was picking it up and pushing it out of the PA - we need our own sound engineer again to help!

We played a full set of our own material for the first time since the USA dates and it felt good - an appreciative audience despite not knowing the material (unlike the USA!) and we'll be back there soon.

The other bands we played with were great too - Thracia who we've played with before and Jezebel - who we haven't. Thanks a lot guys.

Catch us soon...........

 Steve