After a frantic four weeks learning 26 songs, ranging from the completely unknown (to me) to the vaguely familiar (most of them) to the couple that I knew quite well, Ministry of Beaver played its first gig tonight with me behind the drums.
The contrast between the music I played with Kill Clouseau couldn’t be more different. Well, I suppose it could, if we were a death yodel band, but I think I’ve made my point. The Ministry of Beaver set comprises a much more rock-based (and even punk-based in a few instances) sound. They aren’t songs that I would listen to out of choice at home (with a couple of exceptions), but hell, they’re fun to play as a drummer and we have a pretty big sound for an instrumental 3 piece.
The gig took place at The Three Nuns pub in Loughborough. Rod, the bass player, had turned up at 18:00 with Paul, the sound engineer, to set up the P.A. I turned up an hour later and we all set up pretty efficiently, considering the mammoth P.A. that Rod and Paul had brought along.
The gig went as brilliantly as it could go. I made one obvious mistake with the start of a song, but otherwise, everything went swimmingly well and the gig went down a storm. Think we made a good impression!
Andi and Rod played a blinder and Mark did a great job on the vox. All the guys are very much into their instrument (vox in the case of Mark) and are extremely positive and forward looking individuals who love what they are doing. Hand on heart, I’m not used to being in such a positive band, with everyone pulling in the same direction and confident in themselves and it’s a very big and refreshing change.
Really looking forward to the next gig now. Looks like the frantic last few days trying to learn the set have all been worth it!
jtchivers 