July 2009

July is one of our busiest months to date with three consecutive Saturdays seeing Hush is action.
With a new selection of songs to learn rehearsals have been taking us into the unknown again prior to these gigs.
Due to some hard work and a bit of luck, Rebel Yell just fell into place and was played at the first of the months
gigs at the Trout Tavern in Keynsham, with little incident.

The rest of the gig went as well as it could have done. Even with new equipment which should enable us to fit into
slightly smaller spaces than previously, it's still a struggle to get everything in with room to move around. I think
I managed to hit Mitch only once or twice (accidently of course!), which all things considered, was very good!

The only real dampener to the evening was the rain which probably kept some people at home instead of coming
to see us so the audience was a little thin on the ground.

Next up was the first of the years biker gigs for Van Diemans MCC in Hewish. Thankfully the rain held off for most
of the evening. The heavy stuff didn't occur until everything was loaded in to the vehicles and we were just about to
head off home. I hope everyone who was camping managed to stay dry!

The evening consisted of extended sets which was damn good fun, but because of the juggling around of songs we
had done, made us work for the enjoyment. Reports suggest the sound was quite good, despite having to battle with
a huge amount of treble flying around the hall.
Apart from the playing, the best part of the evening was the chilli and the help we had packing up at the end of the
night - a very rare thing indeed! Big thanks to Van Diemans MCC for a great night!

The last gig of the month was for Bogtrotters MCC, this year was at the Riverside Inn in saltford, right on the River Avon.
The rain was around again, but thankfully it was before the whole band arrived. The Riverside Inn is one of those interesting
places for a band to play - stuck in a corner facing a two foot square pillar and a four foot partition stuck to the side of it. There
is also a noise limiter - the live musicians worse nightmare. One quiet hit of the snare drum (not even at rehearsal volumes!)
and it trips the electricity circuit. Grrrr.
After two runs at Shot In The Dark for sound check, with the noise limiter tripping in exactly the same place we finally sorted
things out and had a sucessful run at it.

After the shenanigans of the noise limiter, a nice bit of relaxing by the river before was called for. It made a novel place to be
pre-gig. After all, we had another long couple of sets for the evening. The first set was paced better than last week - we were
not all gasping for a break when it came to the end! It seemed to flow well with enough to keep everyone with us. Did Rich do
his Paranoid/Born To Be Wild "gues the song" trick? Who knows!

The second set started with first outing of Shine On You Crazy Diamond for over a year. Despite not liking the song personally,
it went really well and just felt right. A song in stark contrast to the rest of the set. Followed nicely by Won't Get Fooled Again. As
with the first set, the second half was flowing well with Rain not conjouring up precipitation from above and the combination of
Rebel Yell and Radar Love bring the band together with two favourites. A slightly predictable encore, but fun nevertheless.
Bogtrotters MCC, thanks for asking us to celebrate another year with you guys.

So what does August hold for Hush? At the time of writting there are no gigs, but plenty of time for learning and rehearsing new
songs for September. I'll bow out for now to make room for the next piece of waffle from Hush.....

Chris.
28th June 2009