![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Mar. 12th, 2007 01:39 amOh Gods.
Talk about heaping disasters upon disasters: I haven't had such fun since Grandma died, and Aunt Mabel caught her...(I needn't finish the quote, so I shan't.) This might get a bit techie. But (to borrow a Jeremy Clarkson phrase) in fact I had a ball. Almost everything that could go wrong went wrong: we were running hours late; my pedalboard malfunctioned (or the leads did or something - one of the problems when you've got to break your rig down after soundcheck, so that the next bands can get their kit onstage to perform theirs): I had to go direct through the amp with no set up or tweaking. As an aside, I use my little Fender as a powered cab - going straight into the power amp from my Digitech GNX3. The pre-amp controls are zeroed. I dialed in a tone and ran with it. Then I had to Remember Jeremy's cues, Ergo: I was playing and conducting. JC did well. I'm sure I fluffed the odd bit myself so... just offbeat chord stabs and arm-waving (not drowning), bugger that. I haven't had such a laugh in ages, what with one thing and another.
The performance was a trifle iffy inplaces. Teetering on the precipice of making a complete pratt of yourself in front of (est audience) 8 million people is fun, actually, especially when the company is good (though just about the most politically incorrect it's possible to imagine). Sometimes this sort of stuff is shambolic for a purpose, sometimes it's just...
In the end, charm is all, and those three have it: they are a band/gang/bunch of lads celebrating those aspects of 'chapness' that are forever adolescent, prurient, grandiloquent, and frankly, magnificent. Even if the world should come to an end, some part of me would be always cheering them on. (Oh bugger, there are times when I'm so unreconstructed.) I had a blast.
Justin Hawkins is irritatingly talented too. Guitar, bass, keys, drums, sings etc. And a really nice guy as well.
(Where is my critical scalpel. Have I been seduced by my inner eight year old?)
I never want to meet Tony Blair - I'd probably sympathise with him too much.
James May recognised and named a quote from Thom. Wyatt and retorted with Auden and Isherwood. He too is a manic Radio 3 listener. Nicely erudite and cultured, and shared his fags. (I'm a guitarist, we always ponce fags if we run out on set - normally to roll spliffs, but not in this case, BBC strictures being what they are: I might not always obey the law, but BBC rules almost count as good manners - Reith's prejudices still inform my life. Without the BBC there'd be no Radio 3 - unthinkable!)
Richard Hammond is the most likable of the three - apparently has only once in living memory lost his temper, and given Clarkson etc and the teasing that goes on, blimey what can I say. Really really likable. Dead cool. Good bassist.
In some weird fashion, these chaps make folk feel welcome. They signed autographs, they were uniformly nice and kind to people, and they'd offend everyone and their mother for the sake of a joke, and stand by it because it's a joke.
It goes out on Friday. I hope they edit me out of the shots. Fingers crossed. Also they didn't spell my name correctly on the schedule, which amuses me - after all, it's for charity - I don't care that much, what's in a name, a rose by any other would smell as sweet (think I mangled that one, but it's late, I'm tired, and I have just driven back from the borders of Sussex, which is no great distance, but, however, and nevertheless...)
Time to unwind, then sleep.
This was the most fun in ages - my mood is lifting. Some nice women around as well...hmm. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, I should be meeting more nice women (we used to call them Ladies, but language changes, my dears, and that term now refers to lavatories, alas).
No doubt I've just caught the Spring. Blinking frolicsome old goat, dammit: I should know (and be) better.
Talk about heaping disasters upon disasters: I haven't had such fun since Grandma died, and Aunt Mabel caught her...(I needn't finish the quote, so I shan't.) This might get a bit techie. But (to borrow a Jeremy Clarkson phrase) in fact I had a ball. Almost everything that could go wrong went wrong: we were running hours late; my pedalboard malfunctioned (or the leads did or something - one of the problems when you've got to break your rig down after soundcheck, so that the next bands can get their kit onstage to perform theirs): I had to go direct through the amp with no set up or tweaking. As an aside, I use my little Fender as a powered cab - going straight into the power amp from my Digitech GNX3. The pre-amp controls are zeroed. I dialed in a tone and ran with it. Then I had to Remember Jeremy's cues, Ergo: I was playing and conducting. JC did well. I'm sure I fluffed the odd bit myself so... just offbeat chord stabs and arm-waving (not drowning), bugger that. I haven't had such a laugh in ages, what with one thing and another.
The performance was a trifle iffy inplaces. Teetering on the precipice of making a complete pratt of yourself in front of (est audience) 8 million people is fun, actually, especially when the company is good (though just about the most politically incorrect it's possible to imagine). Sometimes this sort of stuff is shambolic for a purpose, sometimes it's just...
In the end, charm is all, and those three have it: they are a band/gang/bunch of lads celebrating those aspects of 'chapness' that are forever adolescent, prurient, grandiloquent, and frankly, magnificent. Even if the world should come to an end, some part of me would be always cheering them on. (Oh bugger, there are times when I'm so unreconstructed.) I had a blast.
Justin Hawkins is irritatingly talented too. Guitar, bass, keys, drums, sings etc. And a really nice guy as well.
(Where is my critical scalpel. Have I been seduced by my inner eight year old?)
I never want to meet Tony Blair - I'd probably sympathise with him too much.
James May recognised and named a quote from Thom. Wyatt and retorted with Auden and Isherwood. He too is a manic Radio 3 listener. Nicely erudite and cultured, and shared his fags. (I'm a guitarist, we always ponce fags if we run out on set - normally to roll spliffs, but not in this case, BBC strictures being what they are: I might not always obey the law, but BBC rules almost count as good manners - Reith's prejudices still inform my life. Without the BBC there'd be no Radio 3 - unthinkable!)
Richard Hammond is the most likable of the three - apparently has only once in living memory lost his temper, and given Clarkson etc and the teasing that goes on, blimey what can I say. Really really likable. Dead cool. Good bassist.
In some weird fashion, these chaps make folk feel welcome. They signed autographs, they were uniformly nice and kind to people, and they'd offend everyone and their mother for the sake of a joke, and stand by it because it's a joke.
It goes out on Friday. I hope they edit me out of the shots. Fingers crossed. Also they didn't spell my name correctly on the schedule, which amuses me - after all, it's for charity - I don't care that much, what's in a name, a rose by any other would smell as sweet (think I mangled that one, but it's late, I'm tired, and I have just driven back from the borders of Sussex, which is no great distance, but, however, and nevertheless...)
Time to unwind, then sleep.
This was the most fun in ages - my mood is lifting. Some nice women around as well...hmm. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, I should be meeting more nice women (we used to call them Ladies, but language changes, my dears, and that term now refers to lavatories, alas).
No doubt I've just caught the Spring. Blinking frolicsome old goat, dammit: I should know (and be) better.
