Saturday November 10, 2018. Soundcheck at Rumours Rock City on the night of the album launch.
It’s hot as Hades and we’re sweating like politicians trying to explain themselves before a Parliamentary committee.
The venue itself is exactly what I was expecting, very rock ‘n roll. Black walls, sparse furnishings, the stale smell of cigarette smoke.
I’m waiting for the nerves to kick in, but there’s no sign of them.
Setting up my home-made lyrics prompter and vocal monitor turns out to be trickIer than I thought, but eventually we get it going with the help of the sound engineer.
There are no drum mics, so we wait.
Check the guitars. go through the tedium of checking every drum. Tom tom tom. Tom tom tom. Tom tom tom.
The vocals sound OK, although the bass in my monitor is very low. The overall mix is fine because we’re all so close together.
Next to soundcheck are One Man Down, and they sound great as usual. Much more demanding of the sound engineer than we were.
Home to shower and collect boxes of CDs.
Still no sign of nerves.
Get back to the venue, there are people there early. Not sure to what to do myself. Where’s the green room? No green room but the bathrooms are nice enough.
There’s another band launching their album in the downstairs venue, so I go down to put up a sign saying Ponies launch upstairs.
I’m told there have been plenty of people looking for us, which is heartening.
I notice our name on the board outside, so I get a picture of it.
Back upstairs and there’s a sizeable crowd, with many familiar faces.
Before I know it, One Man Down are onstage.
They’re slick, as usual. Their songs are catchy and original. Their harmonies are beautiful. The electrical guitar is sparse but present and on point, the bass does its job, sitting in the pocket like a machine.
They use a cajon box drum, which why I think Indie whenever I see them perform, I suppose.
They have actual fans, as shown here.
I spend most of their set filming them, but suddenly realise that there is one hell of a racket coming from downstairs that must be incredibly off-putting for them.
They don’t bat an eyelid.
Then it’s the turn of Jeremy Franklin and the AllStars. They didn’t sound check earlier for logistical reasons, so there’s a bit of fiddling around.
But they kick off and after a few adjustments they have the crowd moving to their great Afro rock rhythms and beat.
In the meantime I find out from One Man Down that playing with the racket from downstairs was a little unnerving.
The trepidation kicks in, but still no nerves.
The band is spread across the venue, chatting to their various guests.
Eventually it’s our turn, and the noise from the downstairs venue has turned into a deafening roar.
This is going to be interesting, I think.
We’re onstage and set up. No nerves. What the hell is going on?
There’s nothing for it but to play through this noise, I think, and we kick into ‘Waiting for Ricus’.
Instinct takes over and the song is over before I know it.
I’m still not feeling connected.
I can barely hear my bass, but I’m assuming it’s sitting fine in the mix.
Never mind. No nerves.
Bonnie No 5 is next, which is one of my favourites.
It’s fairly easy to play and really rollicks along.
The noise from downstairs is intruding, and I realise it’s because there is no intervening wall, nothing at all to block the sound.
It seems our audience can hear us fine, but I’m struggling to hear the rest of the band, even though we are literally centimetres away from one another.
But the crowd seems to be enjoying what we’re doing.
We seem to have found the groove almost instantly. I’m in the zone anyway, and when that happens I can usually assume that everyone else is.
There’s a drunk heckling me. Oh God, it’s a friend of mine. But you can’t show any fear, or favour for that matter. So I chirp right back.
Ryan’s having a good time. He’s grinning from ear to ear.
There’s a woman in a red dress dancing in front of us.
It looks amazing from stage.
The video below does not have the best sound quality, but you can get the CD for that, and you can quite clearly hear the bands downstairs thrashing away.
Still onstage, I feel this truly is a baptism of fire us. It feels like we are trying to perform during an artillery bombardment.
At one point I know I am playing the wrong notes completely because I simply cannot hear the bass.
Our most tender love song, Ulysses is completely ruined by our competitors downstairs, who sounded as though they had opened the gates of Hell.
The set goes by in a blur.
With sweat stinging my eyes to the point where I cannot see, we finish on a cover, Cream’s Sunshine of your love.
There are calls for en encore, but we just can’t get above the noise, and besides, I’m knackered.
But I look around and I think the band is pretty pleased with itself, although no one says much.
I think we’re all a little shell-shocked as we stumble off the stage, exhausted, the roar of the hounds of the underworld still ringing in our ears.
I’m happy to say I’m still waiting for the nerves to kick in.
(Photographs by Elna Harmse.)
The Ponies 