The gig that nearly wasn't
Ouch - it's too early - OK, it's 1:42pm and we just had lunch but we got in really late - or EARLY this morning in fact. Added to that the school is in the middle of a thunderstorm - literally in the middle of the clouds with rain/snow/sleet/hail falling all around and thunder echoing off the surrounding mountains - quite cool actually! My estimate of our altitude a couple of posts ago turns out to be woefully wrong - we are at about 2000 feet.
But let us not get ahead ourselves - this is Saturday and you have not heard about Thursday night, nor Friday yet.
So Thursday evening, we got the call that Wadih was finally on the way in the Dodge (that's the van-with-character, or VWC) about 20 minutes after we expected him, and saying he was 15 minutes away. He must be exhausted - he is starting his own work at about 6:00am each day and going on until the small hours to ferry us around and run sound too.
Anyway, he duly arrived and hauled us off to Cherry's pub well in the Christian quarter of downtown Beirut - it took quite a while to get there in fact. The pub turned out to be in the basement of a building that houses another pub and a couple of small cafe's. That meant carting the sound equipment down a small but steep flight of steps into the club.
Our first impression was "oh no"! And, in fairness to Wadih, he wouldn't have known how the pub looked since there had been some refurbishment since the last time he was there. The atmosphere is dark and smokey, with the bar close to the entry end and the very small stage at the far end. The pub is split into two areas length wise, with pool tables on one side and tables, chairs and couches on the other, which ends at the front of the stage. The stage had a piano, stool, and various bits of equipment on it that seemed to leave no room for us. And the owner seemed somewhat offhand and a little dismissive about helping us.
(You need to know that as I write these posts we get frequent power cuts that switch off the screen - happily the computers themselves are on a UPS, but it's still very frustrating).
Anyway we cleared the stage and started to set up - to find that Wadih (who had got his employees to load the van) had forgotten to bring Chris's kick pedal and drum stool seat, along with a basket that contained a number of essential cables. Now, a drum pedal was found by the bar owner, but even I wouldn't wish Chris to play a two hour gig perched on a drum seat without the stool - that's too painful a torture even for a Canadian. And without the cables we weren't gonna be making a lot of noise - so a very tired Wadih accepted the inevitable and went off in the VWC to retrieve the missing essentials, while we finished the setup as best we could and then sat down to burgers provided by the owner.
By now Bassem, the owner, had opened up - and turned out to be a highly intelligent and thoughtful guy with whom we struck up an immediate rapport. He was brought up a Christian, but now characterizes himself as an atheist, though agnostic skeptic might be a better description of the views he expressed (including the heart-felt "god bless" at the end of the evening). Anyway, he explained that he is a singer by profession, with a preference for the metal end of the rock spectrum (a preference borne out by the background music that was playing). He related how metal fans have been through a number of periods of persecution by the authorities, and how he himself had spent three short periods in prison! We were introduced to a couple of his brothers, his father, and his mother - all of whom comprised the sole clientele of the pub at the time, apart from an Armenian friend if his father who turned out to be a professional jazz drummer - and bore out his claims by trying out Chris's kit (AFTER the addition of the drum stool I hastily clarify!). Chris, Jon and I spent a while speaking to him of diverse subjects ranging from music to the Armenian massacres in Turkey in 1914. It transpired out he can speak fluent Turkish (which Chris and Charles are well on their way to as well).
Anyway, after the return of Wadih and the completion of the setup, we were told we should start playing at about 10:00 when more people should be around. At 10:00, when no-one else had graced the doorstep of the place, that was extended to 10:30 - and so on until at 11:30, with still only 6 people in the bar (other than us and Bassem himself!), we debated calling it off.
However we didn't - we decided to play a shortened set or about 10 or 11 songs to this miniscule audience, who sat through it and thoroughly enjoyed it - and here's the pay off: they loved us and asked if we would like to play a short guest spot the following night during their rock guitarist competition, which promised a far larger audience and possibly even TV coverage - and we NEARLY said NO (oh how dumb can we be!). The clincher was that Wadih had been asked to do the sound too, so the gear would be already there. Finally we agreed, and with that packed the essentials (the guitars themselves and some of the mikes) and made off to beddybyes at the school, via Dunkin' Donuts, arriving at about 2:30am.
But let us not get ahead ourselves - this is Saturday and you have not heard about Thursday night, nor Friday yet.
So Thursday evening, we got the call that Wadih was finally on the way in the Dodge (that's the van-with-character, or VWC) about 20 minutes after we expected him, and saying he was 15 minutes away. He must be exhausted - he is starting his own work at about 6:00am each day and going on until the small hours to ferry us around and run sound too.
Anyway, he duly arrived and hauled us off to Cherry's pub well in the Christian quarter of downtown Beirut - it took quite a while to get there in fact. The pub turned out to be in the basement of a building that houses another pub and a couple of small cafe's. That meant carting the sound equipment down a small but steep flight of steps into the club.
Our first impression was "oh no"! And, in fairness to Wadih, he wouldn't have known how the pub looked since there had been some refurbishment since the last time he was there. The atmosphere is dark and smokey, with the bar close to the entry end and the very small stage at the far end. The pub is split into two areas length wise, with pool tables on one side and tables, chairs and couches on the other, which ends at the front of the stage. The stage had a piano, stool, and various bits of equipment on it that seemed to leave no room for us. And the owner seemed somewhat offhand and a little dismissive about helping us.
(You need to know that as I write these posts we get frequent power cuts that switch off the screen - happily the computers themselves are on a UPS, but it's still very frustrating).
Anyway we cleared the stage and started to set up - to find that Wadih (who had got his employees to load the van) had forgotten to bring Chris's kick pedal and drum stool seat, along with a basket that contained a number of essential cables. Now, a drum pedal was found by the bar owner, but even I wouldn't wish Chris to play a two hour gig perched on a drum seat without the stool - that's too painful a torture even for a Canadian. And without the cables we weren't gonna be making a lot of noise - so a very tired Wadih accepted the inevitable and went off in the VWC to retrieve the missing essentials, while we finished the setup as best we could and then sat down to burgers provided by the owner.
By now Bassem, the owner, had opened up - and turned out to be a highly intelligent and thoughtful guy with whom we struck up an immediate rapport. He was brought up a Christian, but now characterizes himself as an atheist, though agnostic skeptic might be a better description of the views he expressed (including the heart-felt "god bless" at the end of the evening). Anyway, he explained that he is a singer by profession, with a preference for the metal end of the rock spectrum (a preference borne out by the background music that was playing). He related how metal fans have been through a number of periods of persecution by the authorities, and how he himself had spent three short periods in prison! We were introduced to a couple of his brothers, his father, and his mother - all of whom comprised the sole clientele of the pub at the time, apart from an Armenian friend if his father who turned out to be a professional jazz drummer - and bore out his claims by trying out Chris's kit (AFTER the addition of the drum stool I hastily clarify!). Chris, Jon and I spent a while speaking to him of diverse subjects ranging from music to the Armenian massacres in Turkey in 1914. It transpired out he can speak fluent Turkish (which Chris and Charles are well on their way to as well).
Anyway, after the return of Wadih and the completion of the setup, we were told we should start playing at about 10:00 when more people should be around. At 10:00, when no-one else had graced the doorstep of the place, that was extended to 10:30 - and so on until at 11:30, with still only 6 people in the bar (other than us and Bassem himself!), we debated calling it off.
However we didn't - we decided to play a shortened set or about 10 or 11 songs to this miniscule audience, who sat through it and thoroughly enjoyed it - and here's the pay off: they loved us and asked if we would like to play a short guest spot the following night during their rock guitarist competition, which promised a far larger audience and possibly even TV coverage - and we NEARLY said NO (oh how dumb can we be!). The clincher was that Wadih had been asked to do the sound too, so the gear would be already there. Finally we agreed, and with that packed the essentials (the guitars themselves and some of the mikes) and made off to beddybyes at the school, via Dunkin' Donuts, arriving at about 2:30am.
posted by Martin Bartlett at 12:42 PM
1 Comments:
You know what would be an even worse torture, having to eat British cuisine for any duration of time, or having someone dump their coffee all over you and having to smell that foulness on their wonderful knapsack for the rest of their days. Ha! Nothing is taking that smell away not even the dank, ashtray stank of lastnight's venue.
Post a Comment
<< Home