Drummers can write, too!

Well, hello and welcome to the Hardtail Blog.

For those of you new to the band...a thousand welcomes!

For those of you who know us well…why are you still here?

The first thing is to welcome on board our two new members, Andy and Jon. A new chapter opened when they joined and Lee, Dave and myself are genuinely happy to have two such talented chaps to make us look like a proper band!!!

I suppose the place to start is the (new) beginning, the first gig at The Frenchman, Folkestone. We’d never played there before, so we arrived knowing nothing of the place, including it turns out, how to find the bloody place!! The pub is at one end of a one way street, and all the sat navs managed to get us trying to drive the wrong way down it. After several hours of driving round Cheriton and Folkestone I managed to find the way into the one way street. Note to other bands and punters…don’t trust a sat nav!

Once there, however, we were pleasantly surprised by the pub. Spacious area for the band to play in, posters up etc and the placed is booked out for the year, already. The crowd, whilst not in the Wembley Arena dimensions was good and appreciative. We even got applause for the soundcheck!

First set went well, with no-one but us noticing the mistakes (all as it should be, then). By the second set Andy’s voice had loosened up nicely, Lee and Dave were in their usual groove, Jon had changed out of his sunglasses and my arms hurt like hell.

Unfortunately some external influences (no fault of the pub, either) meant that we had to cut the second set short (much to the delight of my shoulders), but overall a damn fine show as the one song we were told we had left turned into two at the crowds request. So, all in all a good start.

Bit peeved that the next gig has been cancelled, but this giant worldwide banking feck-up even affects little ole covers bands, so Strood will have to wait until later this year.

I can, however, exclusively reveal that the next gig at the Swan & Harlequin shall feature a new song in the set, and the first airing of the next set addition, probably as the soundcheck. I’m not going to give away what they are (as it’s a surprise, especially to me!), but we’re all looking forward to it, and it’s a bit of a change of pace and style from our usual.

Before I go, I’d just like to thank Tony Gameiro for some fan-sodding-tastic photos taken at the gig. Hopefully some shall be making their way onto this site soon. Until then you can see some of the gig and other excellent examples of his work at www.wedding-focus.co.uk

Stay happy, stay healthy.

Bye from Hardtail

Colin