This was a two-week stint with the resident band at Snobs night club in Suffolk Street, Birmingham city centre deputising for their regular guitarist whose name escapes me. This was my first experience playing the disco / funk style doing material by The Average White Band, The Commodores and the like. It suited me very well.
The acoustics in the club were diabolical with the multi-level stage (a nightmare to set up on) facing a glass mirrored wall. To make matters worse the club manager (not exactly the Brain of Britain) had decided to adhere to the ludicrous Health & Safety Executive limits on noise levels. To this end he had installed a mike in the ceiling running into a meter. The meter triggered an orange bulb above the stage which warned of a 10 second grace period in which to get the volume levels down otherwise the power to the stage area was dropped out.
This was completely impractical - just one smart smack on the snare drum was sufficient to activate the orange light - meanwhile the bass guitar could be destroying the building's foundations and it didn't notice!
The solution was to bung up the mike with chewing gum.
However, despite all of this, the standard of playing was pretty good with dynamite drumming from Mike and Richard.
E-mail to : em89@bcs.org.uk
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