Oysterband + Jake Rodriques, Medina Theatre, 24/10/99
Oyster Beer and Oyster Band
Not exactly a Vaguely Sunny day this one. Rain tipping out of the sky and Pete Turner falling ill. No matter on with the show. The Oyster band arrive after four in their van. There are eight of them, five in the band, one on merchandising, one soundman and one stage technician.
    The band pile in and inspect the venue they last came too over ten or twelve years ago. They would have preferred more dancing area. The Medina Theatre has been designed as a seated auditorium with just the barest amount of floor in front of the flat stage. Not perfect for what they want but as they'll discover later the audience is up for the gig.
    Vaguely Sunny Promotions is just Vic, Pete and I helped by various family and friends. We put gigs on, make some money and plough it all back into the next gig or some project or other. It's kinda fun and beats watching the brain dead American TV shows.
    The sound check is exhaustive with the band quite rightly wanting it to sound spot on. They've taken sandwiches before hand in the dressing room area and now work methodically through everything from cello's to accordian. Then a couple of them break off to sit and watch the Rugby in the bar. Pizza's are ordered from one of those real good Pizza places (organised by Jane Turner who knows a thing or two about good food). Pete Turner who knows a thing or two about beer had bought the band Oyster Beer which was well appreciated. Unfortunately he was laid up at home not in any fit state to make the gig.
    Jake Rodriques has done his soundcheck and there isn't any time to wait around for anything. The Medina Theatre bar is filling up. Vic King is out front handling ticket sales and I'm running around making sure that the band and the support are all happy.
    As a policy of promoting local artists as support to the main band tonights slot is for Jake 'Snake' Rodriques.
    I've done all this public speaking stuff before so it doesn't phase me but Jake is short and I'm six foot something. So I have to bend into the central microphone. I look up into a sea of faces in the darkened auditorium. 'Good evening, I don't generally do this but Pete Turner has sick tonight, on his death bed (Jane had a pile of people all night concerned for her husband . . .) so here I am and the first thing I want to do is wish Paul Armfield a very Happy Birthday. (Big Paul colours up a few rows from the front where I spot his Dad Colin laughing his head off.) Somebody said he is 32 but he don't look a day over 24 to me . . . '
    Also time before Jake goes on to announce Rupert Brown and Max Brennan's up and coming Indian traditional music. gig at the Quay Arts Centre. It turned out to be a huge success the following week with some of the masters of the music from India. Rupert is here tonight having flyposted the seats for the gig.
    And before I forget the next Vaguely Sunny gig Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill playing at the Riverside Centre for us on Saturday, December 11th. Jake Rodrigues thinks 'Shabby' has had its day. The Grimshaws, he hopes will start heckling him for that . . .
    'And without further ado a local guy, Jake 'Snake' Rodriques.' Jake passes me onto the stage and I exit stage left to check on the Oyster Band. I don't catch all of Jake's set but a good part of it. Earlier we've discussed him doing We Went For Supper but its so long since he last did it that he is frightened to foul up big time so I don't pressure him. He has nine songs worked out and he does a fine set of acoustic singer songwriter stuff.
    Jakes mum and girlfriend and all the Grimshaws and Poet's Cottage crowd are in the audience and so he gets the stick he wants. Midway through he'll pick up the electric guitar then discard it after deciding it is out of tune. Then thinks to give his mum a rendition of the first bars of George Formby's war time classic 'Leaning on the Lamp post at the corner of the street' on the electric instrument.
    He does stuff like The Moon Is On The Pull Again but my absolute favourite is a song about his adventures working for Euro Disney in Paris as the banjo playing bunny or something. He may get away with this by it being totally true. It is an insiders story rather like that drunk clown in Uncle Buck that John Candy gives a thump too. Only Minnie Mouse is on hallucegenic drugs and everyone else is either pissed as farts or fondling each other.
    Jake sings it in hushed jazz lounge style and resorts to a major 7th warble midway through. He laughs that Johnny Grimshaw absolutely hates it when he does that so he likes to put that bit in. I can hear the Grimshaws curling up at down the front.
    Jake overruns and I am at the curtain wondering whether I'd better pull him off or not but he finishes with about twenty minutes to go. Time for me to go out to say the Oyster Band will be on at 9pm. The last number is the End of the Show appropriately. He tells the audience that he had been on the road once with a famous musician known all over the world, in Japan and America, and he's right here now, JC Grimshaw, everyone laughs.
    Then he says that there was this other bloke with them Midge Ure. About five years ago the ex Ultravox songwriter and Live Aid star once gave Jake and JC an audition and went on the road in Poland and England with them as a trio. The boys steeped in Memphis Minnie, show tunes, Hawaiin hula and thrash skiffle were put to the test. Midge asked them if they knew his big hit Vienna. 'Never heard of it,' said JC. Lonesome Day by Blind Willie McTell no problem.
    Time when the Oyster Band are backstage at 9pm to announce Dave Pontin's gig at the Quay Arts Cenre with the great Scottish tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins at the Quay Arts Centre on Friday. Wellins is the man who played on Stan Tracey's legendary Under Milkwood Suite.
    Also Vic's given me some ticket details for the Hayes and Cahill gig and finally with a fair bit of heckling from what turns out to be the Oyster Band's mainland contingent (ha wind 'em up and get 'em biting for it) I only have to say, 'Vic and I went to Salisbury on Friday night and this band blew the place apart, put your hands together for the Oyster Band.' A crescendo of applause and I can exit stage left and let them get on with it.
    As I have told them backstage is I don't listen to their kind of music much but I like to come to live gigs and what I heard at Salisbury was a stonking show. And they repeat it again. Straight in at full pelt, drums, bass, squeeze box, guitar and violin. The area in front of the stage has about a dozen folks dancing all over the place. Angelina is up and her brother JC has discarded his cowboy boots and is dancing bare feet up and down in front of the band.
    The strength that the Oyster Band have is that the songwriting is strong, the musicianship is solid and they can fly between rock and folk without sounding either too heavy or too finger in the ear. The use of the cello certainly opens up the sound possibilities and the songs and vocal harmonies are crafted.
    Their show from end to end to these ears is worth every penny of the £10 we charged punters to be here. The action is not reserved to the stage however. A handful of Oysterfans from the mainland have journeyed over for the gig wanting I suspect a repeat of the gig in Salisbury. They are clearly disappointed to find a seated venue. Among them is a girl who spends as much time cajoling the audience as she does dancing to the band, the rest sit and mope in the bar.
    You can't please them all as they say but strange to hear the same guy who mopes in the bar describing to the band how much he enjoyed the gig. Oh well. No matter judging from the praise we have had for the gig against a complaint for the girl not being ejected the majority would seem to have had a great time.
    The band also a hit a problem with their monitor sound but aside from that I think they were pleasantly surprised that a seated audience would singalong and repeat a chorus after they thought they'd finished the song which brought them back in.
    The band do a couple of encores and are given a rousing reception for each. While the audience wends their way home Vic King and I sort out the various issues like signing the PRS forms for the royalties for live performances of songs and making sure that the band can find their hotel ok.
    The next day we have to pay the hotel bill for the Oyster Band, sort out Jake Rodriques support fee and in doing so get an invite to lunch in Seaview. It's a tough job but somebody has to do it . . .
Mike Plumbley