HA!

Yes, it is that time of year: school is not only out for summer but out for good, and who is there to help celebrate it in Quadro-style? Yes, it is QUADROPHOBE! Not many people have mastered said Quadro-style, but somehow we manage it. Somehow.

As I recall it has been a month since we last blessed anyone with our unique brand of noise, and a month since I last blessed you with my unique attempt at writing coherent English. And when I say blessed, I mean truly blessed!

For those of you who did not know or were unsure, Quadrophobe is in fact an ensemble heralding not only for Wantage, but all from the wonderful weird and wacky institution that is King Alfreds. So when we got the call asking us to play at such a prestigious event we said “I dunno, sounds pretty boring to me but okay then”. And so there it was, Quadrophobe had been booked. The setting was PERFECT.

This magical musical event was scheduled to happen aty Lains Barn, a venue whilst familiar to the eye was not so familiar to the ears as a place of performing awesome music. So we Quadro-convoyed it up from the farm with all the gear we could ever need for this particular gig and soundchecked pretty much instantly on arrival. As stated earlier in this blog, we had never played this venue before and so we were intrigued as to the acoustic that a barn could offer us. The sound system was set up nicely for us on arrival (though we brought extra microphones jsut to make sure that every single noise we make is heard) and looked pretty comprehensive: PA avec huge subwoofer, monitors and a carpet even so that the drumkit did not slide about. And we even had 3 sound engineers catering to our every need. Perfect.

Soundcheck was fairly standard: we played a bit and then the brass got told off for being too loud. So we got quietened (the rest of the band forget that if I decide I’m not loud enough then I just play louder until I feel that I am dominating the sound sufficiently. HA!). A couple of attempts at “Few Last Words” (ON THE NEW EP!) and we were sorted for the night. Score. Before we were then asked upon to perform our eclectic mix of awesomeness we then pigged out at the hog roast which nicely filled a hole. Then when the hole was nicely filled I ate another one. Nice.

Preceeding us in the billing was an act from the school – a certain Mr Warne – who provided folk for the masses, which went down very well. Quadrophobe were going to have a tough time following this act.

But on we went: we had judged that the mix of current dedicated Quadro-fans and “potential” future Quadro-fans was stirred nicely, and so we would have to produce some material that was known by the masses who were less familiar with our collection of songs (and by less familiar, I mean don’t have a f*$&ing clue who we are). We also kindly agreed to split the set into two halves so that the formalities of the awards ceremony could take place. How kind we are. Also, I welcomed the beer break with open hand.

So to our set: we started off with some favourites of ours – a bit of Few Last Words and Tibet as well as others before moving onto to some songs that the lesser-committed-Quadro-fan would recognise. I think this first set went down really well – people seemed pretty keen for our stuff as well as covers (less keen for ours perhaps, but there was still dancing so I allowed this). And the sound system was sounding pretty good as well (I could even hear myself clearly in the monitor. Sweet).

As for the second set this went down pretty well, though our brand new cover of Dreadlock Holiday did not get quite the reception we were expecting. And by not quite the reception, we mean not a single person danced to it. Shame on you KA’s leavers for not recognising an awesome tune! But there we have it. We continued on with our set mixing recent covers (Love Machine) and not so recent covers (Lady Madonna) in with our own stylings. We then finished strong with some Badger fun and Bad Guys. There seemed to be genuine enjoyment/quite often simply drunkardness on the faces of those dancing.

This was a good gig, and we showcased a good number of tunes over the 90 minutes that we were in charge of everyone’s fun for. I give this gig a C. Perhaps some further tailoring of the set could have helped keep the crowd more into it (a couple more famous covers is my feeling), but we were loved thoughout the entire gig . And that is all that really matters.

Laters

Adam