Fourth gig: Regent Hall - London (UK)

Playing in London is always a special thing for me. I love London. Great city, great people. But this one goes in the books as a very strange day…
What a day it was!! I had it all sort out. Weeks before this gig, al was arranged. The local people in London knew what to do, where where in a day before with all our gear. What can go wrong? Remember last year? Miss our flight, no sound check, no power until 5 minutes before the concert, etc…. I made sure that this time, all would go smooth, easy and on time!
So the local sound company would arrive at 08:00 am to build up sound and lights. We would enter the venue around 10:00 to buildup our gear, and do a good and long sound check. Have lunch, and after lunch do a full band rehearsal, as it has been 1,5 weeks since the last gig in Germany.
Alco and Wilco (FOH & monitoring) took the van with our gear to the venue, and saw that there was no PA build up. So Wilco informed us to take it slow. And then around 10:00 we got the phone call… The sound company arrived with a small van with only the lights around 09:30 (1,5 to late!!). And the big truck was still in a traffic jam.. and would not arrive at the venue for 1,5 hours or so. So the truck arrived around 11:15 (more than 3 hours to late). When we arrived, only the trussing and a few lights where build up. No sign of any PA yet… And they where slow…. man I was irritated. So I had a chat with the leader of the group to speed it up, and they tried, I guess.
Unfortunately, due to a double booking of the venue, we had to clear the hall between 12:00 and 14:00, because there was a meeting. So you can imagen that with the sound being so late, and missing two hours in the middle, my whole schedule was thorn apart.
So we all went out for lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant, Masala zone. When we came back, (around 15:15) we started building our gear and instruments. So finally around 16:30 we started the first sound check, only 5,5 hours to late according to my schedule. But, all went well, but we had a real big sound problem. The venue was a church with soooo much natural reverb, that there was almost no definition tin the sound. But Alco, our FOH sound tech, did a great job! He managed to make something out of it, and it was great!
The concert itself was great. With mixed feelings I played through the set. I totally loved it! But it was the last one of the mini-tour and that is always a bit sad, because it is soooo great to be on tour. during tours, I know that this is why I live! 😉 I am really glad that we did those 4 concerts, and I am looking forward to the coming tour. Coming tour? Well, wishful thinking maybe… hehehe. Who knows!
For me there are now three weeks left until my holiday, and after that I will start working on my own prog-project. I will keep you informed about this. Also I will start producing the new CD of Daniel Fries, and will start with the drumtracks very soon.
Okay, It was sooo great to meet you all and to have some chats. I hope to see you all soon again on some tour or something.
Well, one thing I did not mention, somewhere this summer we will start editing the soundtracks of the DVD recording we did in Zoetermeer. Stay tuned!! I’ll make a ‘dvd-diary’ of it!
cya all!!
Collin