I left work in Glasgow to head into Royal Exchange Square at 4.30pm and didnt get there until 5.30pm as the traffic was crazy. It was the last late night shopping Thursday before Christmas and the city centre was rammed. After the sat nav sent me to a few strange places I eventually ended up at the venue only to be confronted with a security guard who wasn’t for letting me through a chain locked alleyway. After some negotiation on my part I was eventually allowed in only to be told that I would need to walk a fair distance with the PA through the snow and ice. He was kind enough to let me know that I had 5 minutes to unload before he would be locking me in until 6am the following morning, lovely chap! Luckily Manny from Maximillion Events came to the rescue with a trolley and we managed get the gear across to the venue within 5 minutes. Next it was time to find a parking space……to cut a long and stressful story short…..I drove all over Glasgow and there werent any so I parked on double yellows outisde the venue. Later I found out that Iain had also parked on double yellows as had Daz, luckily none of us got tickets.
Anyway…..to the gig – We had drafted in Alex to play bass as Robbie was unavailable and as we were only asked to play 7 songs it saved us cancelling the gig although after all the problems with parking and unloading I almost wish we had.
The event itself was like a game show and we were just part of it. There were 7 groups of 10-13 people who all had to get up and sing a song, the crowd cheered or jeered and a highly technical “clapometer” rated the performances. Iain was having kittens as his drums were being played by the well oiled guests, they also threw blow up guitars at him. Nice!
We had another nightmare trying to load out as the area we had played on then became a dancefloor and we had 2 flights of stairs to take the gear down to the ground level before having to park on Buchanan Street and carry all the stuff a fair distance.
By the end of the night we were all mentally and physically knackered, hats off to the Maximillion Team who do all this stuff on a daily basis. Its not for me – I prefer the easy life!
Gig Rating: R+