Howdy folks.

Big night last night, the pub was packed...with Blokes.

Yep, Blokes there to watch the Footy.

Installing a 5 piece band into a pub is a maneuver worthy of examination. Gently edging drinking blokes out of the way so you can set up the mixing desk can be fraught with peril. 'Jeez mate, how much space do you want, the whole bloody pub?' asked one helpful chap.

No mate, just enough space to put the mixing desk down. By the end of the night the fellow returned to say that he understood why we needed so much gear, as he put it, 'cos you guys are _____ing awesome'

Good to know we converted a try too :-)

Wisely, we took a break around 70 minutes into the big game so that we could all enjoy the cliff hanger ending and when Australia won, well you know what had to happen then. Yep, they danced. 

If you have never seen the Slightly Inebriated Male Australian (Rugby) Fan dance, you've missed a sociological phenomenon; it is a sight to behold.

In our own minds, we are as suave as John Travolta a la Saturday night fever, sometimes we are River Dance Gods of Irish Jiggery.

They swung, they teetered, they turned baseball caps back to front and back again, one guy lost his pants. He was pants-slouching and only a quick left hand saved him from ejection by the bouncers. Close Trouser call.

Yep. Dancing. Enthusiastic dancing.

We played 3 new songs last night.

Give Me Something I Want was so appealing they sang along. A chorus of 'Give me something I want' was heard throughout the pub. It's a Bloke song after all.

Twice Shy Girl, our biggest risk, went over very well. Yay. Mr Rix, joining us on Bass, confided to me later that he had thought playing it was a big risk. As did Rosie.

However, Theo is afraid of nothing, Mr Wizard was game and I was keen to try it out. Only as the song started did I start to think..'hmm..maybe Rosie was right'. Nope. It was great. yay us.

Travelling Song went down very well, the guide track for it is currently in repeat on my playlist. 

Good times.

The only problem I had last night was in deploying a new lighting console I had decided to try.

No, the fog wasn't the problem. Theo is in charge of that.

I tried a new lighting rig with a DMX controller and found it a little more fiddly than I was hoping. Big thanks to Alan for coming along to help me test out the idea.

ARGH!!!!

The DMX controls on the Colour Washes were some obscure non standard setup that was contradictory to the manual, three different lighting suppliers couldn't work it out so we opted to try some LED Parcans, which communicated predictably with the controller, but the controller itself was one of those idiosyncratic units that did things a certain way and you better get used to it buddy and I didn't quite grasp its operation.

Lights were going on and off, the strobe almost gave Theo a Fit, one light stopped responding altogether. I eventually gave up and hustled the controller unit over to Alan. Man's gotta know his limitations.

HA! I'm about to try out yet another over engineered solution next gig. Standby for more explosions!

A shout out to Raelynn for her first time in the Stormcellar, to Lee and Alan for the help ion managing the gear and al the folks who joined us last night.