Birth of a Band 10

The June 8th gig at the Dukes Head was Custard Cream’s third and by far (to that point) the best. The endings had finally come together, mostly thanks to Angus’ explicit movements and eye contact, and everyone seemed to have taken on board all of the critiques that had flown about the week before. It was good.

The audience was made up (to the degree of about 50 per cent) of people I had dragged along one way or another, but there wasn’t nearly so much audience interaction or participation as there had been the week before.

But there was a degree of appreciation – certainly enough to give the band some energy to push on through to the end. We still seemed (to me) to be a little short of material, but we were getting there.

Our next gig, at The Chequers in Marlow on June 14th, was even more of a ‘local’ gig for me and I had tried my best to get as many people as possible over. We had quite a few and most of them stuck around. I say most, but certainly not all... For example, there was one guy, Justin, who I had been playing with quite regularly at the open mic nights. He’s about my age, into rock music… But I realised as I watched him watch us that we weren’t getting through at all. He left before the end of the first set. It's always odd when you discover something you love means nothing to someone near.

Ah, well, the prophet is never recognised in his home town… ;-)

The Chequers is a pub that stretches back into (what is now) a large steak restaurant. Last orders for food are at 9pm… which is when the band is booked to start.

We did a sound check at about half eight – and the waiters, waitresses and management were down on us like a ton of unfriendly bricks. “Too loud!,” they shouted at various times during the sound check, after it and once we had started playing.

George, Angus and I all turned down… I have a distinct feeling that Nige turned up. No matter, once the food was served out, we were back at normal volume again and the evening went well – not to mention our highest pay-out to then.

The following Monday saw an email from Nige praising the gig (and, oddly, the venue) and explaining how his wife was organising a sort of mini-festival in Wokingham market square – would we play for nothing.

These sort of things are anathema to me, but they are so good for publicity… We all said ‘yes’ without a moment’s hesitation.

I got a gig to play at a friend’s 50th birthday party in July… £400. I have to admit, I went into something that can only be described as ‘smug mode’ for quite some weeks after that.

George complimented me. Nige, trying to sound as though he was joking, clearly wrankled.