Last night I played the gig I was looking forward to; supporting Savanna at The Olive Tree in Frome. Let me give you the whole story. 


When I arrived Savanna were already there and setting up their kit. I had already decided that the best policy for me would be to stay well out of the way and that proved wise as they had a mad amount of kit they were setting up. They were going to be performing as the full 8 piece so the little corner of the pub was going to be jammed. I listed the line up once before but now I have a few names. Ebu is the lead singer and master of chants assisted by Charlotte on backing vocals (who has been lined up to take over from Anna who is leaving, I guess to concentrate on her upcoming album with her band, Fabric). Alan and Si are on guitars with Alan's son on drums. I did not catch the name of the girl who plays keyboards but we chatted about the merits of our kit briefly with her considering a change to her trusty 15 year old Gem digital piano. Mike McElya was on percussion with another Mike on bass. Simon (who I think might have been Charlotte's Dad) was manning the desk with a man of the match performance as he was using a borrowed desk that he had seen for the first time that night. I was concerned when I saw him pawing over the manual with such studiousness during the set up that we were going to be for a rough time but I need not have worried. The sound management was handled seamlessly. There was one more Simon to meet as well, a promoter armed with flyers.


It was gone 8 o'clock by the time we did the soundchecks and everything was ready. I was just about to get started when I saw someone else step up with their guitar. Antigua Joe had arrived thinking there was an open mic on that night and so he did  a few of his reggae/calypso numbers. I then did about a 40 minutes set consisting of Binary Flag, Hidden Depths, Work It Out, The Longer I leave It, Get Back (Jack Kerouac), Smile and Suffer. Everything went great and I got a good reception with applause and the odd bit of whooping and hollering. I didn't have any friends there so it was an honest reaction from an audience of total strangers.


After a little break Savanna took to the stage and stormed through their hour long set with glee. Great pieces of music; dance-able, earthy, intricate, melodic anthems every one of them. Once they finished it was interesting to hear them all say that they had winged it on a couple of numbers as things had gone wrong but I nor anyone else in the audience had noticed. We were too busy enjoying ourselves.


After the show while packing up, thanking everyone and saying our goodbyes I had a chat with Si regarding another chance for gigs but that's something I will have to save for now until I have a little more to tell you.