26 April 2024. Final part of ELF, Every Last Friday mini music marathon in Battle. A quick trot down the High Street the The Abbey Hotel. This was our final stop last time we played ELF and we were a bit disappointed then. The bar man (manager/owner?) was unfriendly then and nothing has changed, other than maybe he was even more unfriendly and seemed to be in a pretty bad mood. But, we set up and played and soon found ourselves completely surrounded by the ladies from Sarah’s Cellar. They set up a semi circle of chairs directly in front of us and enthused about how wonderful we are and how they are now big fans! But they talked to each other loudly over everything we played, mostly ignoring us and effectively cutting us off from anyone else that might have wanted to listen. But, other than them the place was pretty empty so it didn’t really matter! We enjoyed playing. When we finished we got packed up while the tables were cleaned around us and, as this was our last stop, bought some drinks and nuts (supper) then were joined by Erika and partner, Ziggy which was a brilliant end to the evening. We chatted about music and life and everything. This is one great part about playing music, meeting and talking to the other artists, but at marathon events you pass like ships in the night and don’t usually get to meet up, so we’re glad that Erika came back to the Abbey.
This sounds quite negative about the event but hats off to Darren for organising it every month and keeping small, live music going in the town. It really is just not the right kind of event for us – it’s perfect for louder bands / solo artists or those doing covers that people can sing along to, but not for our kind of audience engagement. Ooh, hark at us! But we don’t enjoy being background music, we need to get some feedback from those listening – needy I know, but that’s what makes performing enjoyable for us. If we’re not enjoying ourselves, there really isn’t a lot of point. Would we do it again? Probably not this one as we’ve done this 3 times now and it’s a bit of a drive for us.
Note: We report all performances to PRS but they have a limit on the number of gigs that you can report on each day so it’s a bit of a rigmarole when you do 4 or 5 in one evening. Last time we just had to fill in a form and show proof that we’d been booked for the gigs then it was accepted, but this time we’re still having trouble getting it accepted come July. Just something to be aware of for future multiple bookings.
The fee for the evening was the same as last time despite it being one venue less, but we did get to play a bit longer in each venue so I guess that’s fair!