Blog: Back To The Old House

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It's AGES since I've been to Leicester by train, and so last night's trip was the first time I'd departed from the excitingly new looking version of St Pancras INTERNATIONAL. It's still a couple of years until The Midlands Embassy is fully restored to its old GLORY, but the new roof and all that looks DEAD good. Will the shop selling Proper Leicester Samosas be refurbished and reinstated though? We can only wait, wait and pray.

I was up in Leicester for the evening for two reasons - to record the basic tracks of Other Bands' Setlists for us on the new single and, first of all, to have a practice with Tim and Emma ready for our appearance at the Bowlie All-Dayer (only a few tickets left, EAGER TYPES). This didn't go quite according to plan - for a start Tim was delayed by 1.75 hours (of a two hour practice!) by his rotten old BOSS turning up and demanding a meeting. Emma was only delayed by about 20 minutes by BABYSITTERS, but this was compounded somewhat by us sitting around having a CHAT for the next half hour. HEY! None of The Vlads get much chance to do this with each other,it is valuable BAND TIME.

We practiced Other Bands' Setlists for a while and got it sounding Pretty Good (especially when Tim eventually got there), and also ran through Mental Judo, The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B) and Dino At The Sands for possible utilisation in the 3-piece LIVE ENVIRONMENT. I must say i was pretty chuffed, also RELIEVED - next weekend's gig looks like being Rather PLEASANT now.

That done we removed ourselves to the next floor down where we were soon joined by Mr Reverb. It feels like AGES since we were all last in with him, and I entered fearfully, apprehensive of the GREAT CHANGES that must surely have been made - it's at LEAST two years since I was last in, and back then he was girding himself for major refurbishment.

The walls are yellow! OK, that's not all, he's had a BIG clearout of some of the crap in the control room, tho surely no single skip was enough to take all of it, and is now waiting for a new ceiling. In the words of the song, it made the room look bigger. The live room, however, is EXACTLY the same, with the same setlists, same bits of wire, and, still stuck to the door, the same tetchy notice regarding the June 2002 Electricity Bill. It was good to be back!

All went very smoothly - me and Tim recorded the song itself in two takes, I did my vocal in one, Emma went straight through her main vocal (with one drop-in) and then double-tracked it, and then suddenly it was time to GO! I had to catch the train otherwise I'd not get home, so left the remaining vocals in the capable hands of Kev, Emma, Tim and Tom (who'd recently arrived for this purpose) and strode next door to catch my train. As we trundled out of the station I considered how LUCKY i am now to be in a band where you can do that sort of thing. Apparently it all went very smoothly, and within a few weeks we should have a rough idea of how it all sounds together. LOVELY!

posted 18/8/2006 by MJ Hibbett

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