Daintees Diaries Pt. 6

*Playing a really special show in London (Photo: Nicky Murray)*

As we wrap up the 2022 Daintees tour, its about time I gave one last Daintees Diaries update for this year’s shenanigans! In this edition we’ll be going from; Hebden Bridge, Hull, Gateshead, London and a bonus gig at Hexham!

Must be said here that for all the tour dates between Liverpool (where I wrapped up the last blog) and Hebden, I was unable to join Martin and the guys due to prior commitments on the old panto job, so my seat was kept warm by Sam Cowan, who did a sterling job with his dad Davy on bass, and Rupert Hughes on guitar keeping the engine room running smooth while Gary, Anth, Adrian and I were elsewhere for a short mini tour of the Midlands and South of England last month. Anyway, back to the job, and the usual suspects in the band!

Starting in Hebden Bridge, in a lovely little venue, The Trades Club. Now I am usually not a fan of upstairs load ins, but the light hardware and smaller kits make them that little bit more bearable, especially when its a load in to a nice room, which this certainly was! The Yamaha Hipgig kit did the job perfectly, and a great gig was had. From here we headed eastwards to Hull and the New Adelphi Club. Now the club is reminiscent of the likes of CBGB’s in New York, in that it looked like it hadn’t been hoovered since at least 1986 or so! But though such places may not appear much, they all have a certain vibe to them, and this one was no exception. Same band lineup and rig as the night before, and running like a well oiled machine, Martin, Gary, Ade and I doing what we do. A few surprise tunes thrown up too, like The Folksinger (one of the few covers Martin does, originally by Tom Ovans) which made a few other appearances on different gigs as the tour went on.

*In action at the New Adelphi, Hull (Photo: Rich Cundill)*

*The small but mighty Yamaha Hipgig kit on stage in Hull*

From our trip to Yorkshire and Humberside and back, we headed up for the home gig of the tour, and always a special place to play, the Sage in Gateshead. Having played Hall 2 last year, it was a great pleasure to come back and do it all again, this time around with the classic Daintees front line, Martin, Gary and Anth and me at the back, it doesn’t get much more pure than this, 3 original members doing what they do best, and playing their songs. It’s been great to play with this lineup a lot over the course of the tour, and this was the gig to top it all off, with a near sold out crowd and lots of family and familiar faces in for all of us. Now it goes without saying that the Sage has a great crew, but absolutely must mention Phil Marshall who was on sound, and did a stunning job, it might well be the best sound i’ve had on stage all tour, and the drums sounded beautiful in that room too. The gig was one of those that just seemed to flow out of us and felt almost effortless. Must give the lovely Anna Lavigne a mention, not only for her tour managing duties but also for the beautiful rendition of her song ‘Paris in the Rain‘ that has been a part of the setlist on a few gigs this tour, sang beautifully as a duet with Martin, backed only by his fingerstyle acoustic guitar plucking, sheer beauty.

I can’t not mention a beautiful moment towards the end of the set too, when Martin spotted my Grandma, Irene in the crowd, who he hadn’t seen since my Grandad, Paul Smith was in the band, probably 30 years or so ago! In typical Martin style, the gig was paused while he ran off stage to meet her for a hug, before dedicating a song and carrying on the show. A really special event indeed. I’ll try and share a video of that at some point too!

*Martin & Me, The Sage (Photo: Juan Fitzgerald)*

*Gary, Martin, Anth and Me doing the bit, Sage style! (Photo: Juan Fitzgerald)*

We were off to London next to the 229 venue on Great Portland Street for a very special gig with Tom Robinson (of the Tom Robinson Band) joining us for a guest spot, and what a journey that ended up being! A drive that would normally take 4/5hours wound up taking over 8, getting us to the venue way later than we would’ve liked but with just enough time to setup and soundcheck before the doors were opened. It was Adrian’s turn to drive Gary and I, and he was a real trooper considering the journey felt endless, down motorways and avoiding sheet ice Satnav detours through rural England! Not only were we delayed getting into the venue, poor Martin was hit with flight delays and made it to the venue after the doors had opened,

*My 2-4-6-8 Motorway chart, as inscribed by Tom Robinson*

We had a brief soundcheck with Tom Robinson (standing in for Martin, who’d have thought!). In an ideal world, we’d have liked a proper on stage rehearsal of Tom’s tunes to at least have run them down, but that wasn’t to be, so it was a case of acoustic guitars in the dressing room and keep your ears and eyes open. In my usual methodical way of working, i’d written out quick charts of all 3 of the songs we were to play with Tom, so I had a reference point to keep me right, these were especially useful in the circumstances! When we had a quick run of 2-4-6-8 Motorway in the soundcheck, Tom was quick to let us know any changes he wanted, and how he wanted the tempo to sit, and we were all happy to oblige, in my case he wanted it really busy in terms of fills, to bookend the vocals and fill in the gaps, which for me personally is an unnatural approach, as I tend to be on the more economical, groove based side of the coin, leaving more space and generally more carefully placed fills and figures. So this was a real step out of the comfort zone, but that was okay with me! To that end, Tom wrote a great little message on the bottom of my scrawly chart (pictured) reading ‘It is not possible to play too much on 2-4-6-8 Motorway. Official!’ and i’m glad to say he was more than happy with the result! (a snippet of which is below, thanks to Anita for capturing that) As such things sometimes are, lack of a proper rehearsal results in some great spontaneity on the gig, which there really was with Tom, things seemed to gel nicely and the groove was happening.

(Video: Anita Joyce Lad)

Not only did we have Tom guesting, but new friend of the band Freddie Joyce joined us to play some wonderful saxophone on ‘War Baby’ with Tom, as well as Martin’s ‘Left us to Burn‘, building to a rousing guitar/sax solo trade between Freddie and Gary. Wonderful stuff indeed. As for Martin, he was on his usual fine form, a lack of soundcheck is water off a ducks back for him and we hit the ground running, tune after tune in a stream of musical consciousness and numerous anecdotes, what more can you want from a Daintees gig!

Post gig it was great to meet up with my old pal (and top drummer) Euan Crawford-McKee who’d come down to the gig, though we’ve been friends a while, and shared some work between ourselves we’d actually never met in person (such is often the way with musicians of your own kind!) so it was great to meet in person and he really enjoyed the gig (always a bonus eh!). Needless to say we talked shop for a good half hour and he popped up to see the kit. Setup wise we’re total opposites (Euan’s much taller than me and sits way higher!) so it was somewhat comical watching him sit on my low stool and look like a giant behind the little Yamaha kit, we both agreed how good it sounded though, and he couldn’t believe it was only a 13” Snare, from the crowd he said he was sure I’d be playing my old COB Gretsch or Ludwig Acrolite, so he got quite the shock to see the stock Al Foster 13x5” sat behind the kit! More on that snare in the gear nerdery section of this blog!

Now after an 8 hour drive and a great nights work, you’d think it’d be back to the hotel for a nice nights sleep and long lie in, but such is life sometimes, that wasn’t gonna happen! I had a 2 show day back on the pantomime the following day so had to be home in time to make a 1pm call at the theatre, and Gary had a gig to get back to for that night too, so we were up at the crack of dawn and rolling away from our resting post at Milton Keynes by 7:30am the following morning, to beat the traffic and give us plenty of time in hand to make it back home, which we did with lots of time to spare! Again have to thank Adrian and Gary for agreeing to do that, and making life that little bit easier!

*The Daintees and Tom Robinson (L-R; Gary, Me, Tom, Adrian & Martin hiding in the shadows!) (Photo: Neil Entwistle)*

*The sign of a job well done, spreading the post gig love with the boss! (Photo: Neil Entwistle)*

As a slight add on, it looks like someone in the audience at 229 captured the whole gig, so if you couldn’t be there you can have a look at what went down on that special night!

Back up north and finishing the year with an intimate, non-tour billed gig at The Vault in Hexham, a small underground venue (think the Cavern in Liverpool but scaled down!). The classic Daintees frontline out to play, Martin, Gary and Anth, and friend of the band Juan Fitzgerald also there taking some great photos (see below!). This gig was about as small as it gets, to a capacity crowd of around 40 people in the small room, and a stage that is smaller than most drum risers I’ve been put on! Talk about being squeezed in the corner, there was hardly any room to swing a stick but we had a wonderful night. Speaking of sticks, in such a small venue there was no need for anything that heavy, so it was a slightly more acoustic combo of brushes and Promark Cool Rods. Performing a near 2 hour set of the classic Daintees material, as well as some real deep cuts and requests from the audience. A great gig to finish the year off on.

*Tucked into the corner at The Vault, Hexham (Photo: Juan Fitzgerald)*

Talking Drums (The gear chat continues!)

So how have things changed since the last gigs? Well not much! but lets run the kits down anyway! The Hebden Bridge, Hull and London gigs all made use of the little Al Foster Yamaha Hipgig kit, 18x22” (Yup, 22” deep!), 12x6.5”, 14x8.5” & the little powerhouse 13x5” snare. The snare is something really special, considering its a 13”, you’d expect it to play and sound like a piccolo, but it really doesn't, it has the body and depth of a 14” snare, and I don’t do any special treatment to it in terms of heads or tuning, it’s got a coated Evans G1 batter, Hazy 300 Reso and the original Yamaha wires still on there after 22 years (if it ain’t broke!) and is just tuned medium to give it that thwap. It has a great sound when you lay in but equally is great with brushes or played gently, so you get the tone, and an old Yamaha Groove Wedge added to give it a really woody cross stick tone. All I have on dampening wise is a Snareweight M1b, and the only work thats ever been done on the drum is a recent service for the throw off thanks to Newby Drums, as it had taken a knock over the years and the tension adjustment knob was a little bent, not anymore though! So that kit was the one you heard on the video with Tom, and on a fair few of this years shows!

For the Sage gig and Hexham gig, it was the black sparkle Natal kit you’ve seen a fair bit already in the last couple of Daintees Diaries posts, nothing unusual there! Originals Maple 20x12”, 12x7”, 14x12” sizes, that shallow bass drum being especially needed on the Hexham gig, on such a compact stage trying to keep floor space to a minimum was key, so having a super narrow bass drum that still sounds full made it that little bit easier! The only slight variations really were in the snare department. At the Sage it was only right to bring out something a little special, and is possibly my favourite snare, the beautiful DW Craviotto solid shell maple 14x5.5”. Now this snare isn’t one i’ve gigged much (if ever) since i’ve had it, though its been used extensively in the studio, especially so on the forthcoming Daintees album, but I haven’t dared gig it because of the throw off that was originally fitted to it, a Nickelworks model that was popular at the time, but due to it’s plastic construction has become prone to snapping over the years. That has all changed now thanks to my good pal Gareth at Highwood Drums, who managed to source me one of the new DW Mini Mag throw offs to be retrofitted with no modifications required to the shell, a much more dependable throw and super smooth and easy to use too. Now these throw offs aren’t hard to find, and have become much more available over the last year or so since they were released, but the hard part for me was getting hold of one in the 24k gold plated finish, to match the rest of the drums fittings, so a near 8 month wait to get one was well worth it! As for the Hexham show I went a bit more classic and took the 1963 Acrolite with me, a solid and dependable drum that i’ve used on hundreds of jobs over the past few years, its a true workhorse and it never fails to sound wonderful in any situation!

Cymbal wise on both rigs it’s the usual bunch, 13” Sabian AA Regular Hats, 16” Zildjian K Custom Session crash, 17” Zildjian A Thin Crash, 60’s Zildjian 18” Avedis Heavy ride. The only change was a slightly different ride for the Hexham gig, to be a little more controlled in the small room, and since I didn’t have the room for a second crash, so the 19” Zildjian Armand ‘Beautiful Baby‘ was the choice of the day, 3 rivets fitted and sizzling away nicely, it sounded great with the brushes and hot rods that nearly all of that gig was using.

Again I was using Tama Classic Hardware, Gibraltar throne, Protection Racket & Ahead cases, Drummer’s Brainchild Brush holder, Vic Firth SSG2 Natural finish Steve Gadd models, VF Gadd brushes and a Peter Erskine model felt VicKick VKB5 bass drum beater. I think that completes the drummist info!

So that wraps up another Daintees tour, and 2022’s touring action as a whole! Must extend a huge thanks to all the people who make these dates happen, from promoters, venues, sound engineers, technical crew and everyone behind the scenes, Anna keeping the wheels in motion day to day, my onstage compadres Gary, Anth & Adrian, all the special guests (not limited to) Nicky Murray, Tom Robinson, Freddie Joyce and anyone else i’ve missed. Also to Andrew Robertshaw, who did all the deps on the panto to allow me to sneak off and do these dates (not an easy job for anyone!) and last but no means least Martin, who works as tirelessly offstage as he does on, and makes life on the road as lovely as can be!

Happy New Year and we’ll hopefully see you out on the road again sometime in 2023!

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