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Pete Jupp
Here we are again another gig, another "sell out". We
rehearsed for the show up at the trusty Rhonas
Rehearsals in Kings Langley. First decision to be made
was how many and which songs from Metropolis should we
play at the gig? Tough one really it would be nice to
give the new songs, songs we are very proud of, a good
airing but I just know from past live shows I've been to
myself when seeing a favourite band, a couple of newies
are fine but I want all my faves first and foremost.
So
it was decided that as we were having a playback of the
new material, we'd only add a couple of newies to the
set. We didn't include Wildside in that bracket so I
guess you could say it was three if we're going to split
hairs. We decided we'd do "Over You" and "Flamingo
Road" from the new album. "Over You" was one of the
first songs written for the album and was almost
discarded but Steve and I were going through songs to
send to our "X Factor panel" to help choose the final
four songs and came across the track and thought "Wow
this is good, lets send it out" and it came out top,
above all the other tracks. What do we know, we're only
the band! Also when reading this, if you've heard the
song you'll notice it is not short of absolutely tons of
backing vocals. Singing all the different harmonies in
tune is one thing, and hard enough, but even tougher was
remembering the bloody words, each chorus is slightly
different lyrically, we had to up our intake of Omega 3
and Sanatogen to help our flagging overworked brains.
So apart from the brain-ache, rehearsals went ever so
smoothly and we had our final one the day before the
gig, closing the rehearsal room door at around 10.00pm.
We were ready and well up for it!Steve, Jim and myself
went back to Ealing for a couple of thoroughly
well-earned pints and headed off to our respective
lodgings.
Sunday morning I woke about 8.30am had a shower and went
out for breakfast with the family. We were due to meet
at The Roadhouse at 1.00pm and as parking in that neck
of the woods is an absolute nightmare I thought I'd be
"green" and reduce my rather large carbon footprint by
travelling into town by tube. The tube is great when it
all works, wouldn't fancy travelling in the rush hour
five days a week though, but today it was obviously
having a bad day. I waited at Ealing Broadway for 25
mins for a train, we finally left the station and a few
hundred yards out we stopped and didn't move again for
over 10 minutes. Thankfully the rest of my journey to
Leicester Square was a lot smoother and I arrived at The
Roadhouse about 1.45pm. Covent Garden is, in my
opinion, a fantastic part of our capital. It's very
cosmopolitan, bustling with people, weird and wonderful
street entertainers, shops, cafés and restaurants - I
love it. Let's have a big up to London, my home town.
It's got its faults, but it's got some places that just
cannot be beaten. When I arrived all the gear had been
loaded in (handy!). The crew were setting about the
task of fitting our equipment onto the Roadhouse stage.
As you are no doubt aware Jem's motto of "Why use one
keyboard when you can use ten" was fully in evidence, so
much so we couldn't fit him and his "toys" on the
stage. We got around it by plonking him to the
left-hand side of the stage nearly in with the
audience.
It was very nice having a long, relaxed soundcheck for a
change, gigs like the Firefest are just mayhem but
that's the way it goes at festivals. Soundcheck over,
it was time for our "Meet & Greet". Dave T - who
incidentally, along with his much better half
Tiff had done the most amazing job of decorating the
venue with huge posters of the band / album sleeves etc.
(I must remember to buy shares in copier toner companies
before our next gig) - got everyone together and we were
off, silver markers at the ready. I think I've
mentioned it before but I love these meet & greets. I
love meeting everyone, finding out how far they've
travelled and just generally having a good old natter,
and the fact that so many people want to meet us is
really cool. We will definitely do these at every gig
wherever it's possible. We all lined up for a "group"
photo to mark the occasion and it was time to open the
doors. Have I mentioned this yet - the gig is another
"sell out"? That makes it four out of four since our
reunion (thanks FM'ers everywhere). I stick around in
the venue and it's great seeing so many familiar faces
turning up. After so many years it's fantastic being
amongst so many old, okay not so much of the old,
friends. |
I
realised I'd not eaten since breakfast so when Adrian,
our rather splendid manager, asked me to join him for a
bite to eat I was there in a flash and with Metropolis
belting out through the sound system I promptly devoured
one of the Roadhouse's finest burgers. Eating over it
was time for young star in the making James Ralphs to
take the stage and show off his considerable musical
talent with a fantastic acoustic set of his very fine
songs. Nice one James. It was fast approaching the
witching hour of 9.00pm so it was backstage to get
ready. Pretty much bang on 9.00pm - to a, did I
mention, sell out crowd - the intro tape, or should
that be intro mini disc, kicks in. I'm surprisingly
relaxed sat behind the kit. It's probably to do with,
like I said earlier, being amongst friends. Then with a
bang and a flash of pyros we're into Wildside, we're up
for it, so are the crowd, it's going to be a good night,
let's go! Into Face To Face and the FM choir are in
full voice. I had a couple of friends who were seeing
us for the first time and they couldn't get over how our
fans know every word, every ad lib to every song.
Needless to say they were blown away by it all as were
two of my nephews Niki and Costa, Niki sending me a text
later "Don't stop, don't stop I'm loving every minute of
it" bless! The gig flew by, everyone was playing great,
Jim has taken the lead guitarist's job and made it his
own in no time at all. Over You and Flamingo Road were
very well received, I think we did pretty well
remembering the words in Over You too. So with another
flash of pyros which apparently nearly gave my mate
Philip a heart attack, on the last chord of Bad Luck the
gig was at an end.... or was it? Not quite for we had a
really special guest in none other than Bad Company /
Mott the Hoople guitar legend Mick Ralphs joining us on
stage for a version of the Bad Co classic Feel Like
Makin' Love. Now I was just such a huge fan of both
bands. I saw Bad Co in their really early days at The
Rainbow Theatre in North London also Olympia, and now I
was up there playing with one of my heroes. I tell you
now that to me was the icing on an already awesome cake,
you can add some cream and strawberries too.
Roadhouse you rocked, thanks yet again to everyone in
attendance.
I
grabbed a quick beer and as promised hit the DJ booth to
play some of my favourite rock songs. Unfortunately my
"set" - that's DJ speak folks - was cut short by the
start of The Super Bowl. I was quite getting into it so
if you're all up for it I'm sure I could be persuaded to
do it again at future shows. I mingled with the crowd
and found my missus who was definitely way ahead of me
in the partying stakes so I thought I'd better take it
easy on the beer front as I knew for a fact I'd be doing
the school run the following morning (back to reality).
I bid my farewells around 2.00am to Messrs Overland and
Kirkpatrick who were showing no signs of leaving, we
jumped in a cab with friends Adrian and Trish and headed
back to Ealing. Another great night and here's to many
more... by the way did I mention the aforementioned gig
was a sell out : )
God
bless you all once again.
Pete
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