Hey, welcome back to another KT Tuesday.
Last Tuesday I had no internet after moving to my new house in Birmingham...
Yay.. I’m back in Birmingham.
To be honest, I have lived in lots of places across the UK and Birmingham is the first place I have actually moved back to, or lived in for a second time and this time, it really does feel like coming home.
I love the music scene in Birmingham, I'm familiar with the layout, streets and have some friends here too. So I'm really happy to be back.
So… back to the plot.
As discussed in the last blog, we were stood around the merch stand in the venue Redrum on the Friday night and Grace received a message from a promoter who she did a gig for earlier in the year.
Grace went on to explain, would we all be up for a gig tomorrow night in Dudley at Ye Olde Foundry?
As we huddled around in a circle listening to the question we looked and one another and said.. "Hell yeah, Lets do it"
So Grace messaged him back and that was that. Two gigs on the bounce and three in less than two weeks.
We continued on with the Redrum night and watched the other bands, had a bit of a jump around for a bit… it was then when Grace was dancing and moshing with Mike, I looked round and seen she had spilt her drink on the floor right in the middle of the dance floor.
Laughing and still dancing around it.
We all smiled and then I ran up to the bar, saying or more like lip syncing to the barperson over the noise,
“Hey can we have some wipes please, we have spilt a drink on the floor”
Hey.. hold on a sec.
I'm supposed to be talking about the gig in Dudley..
So to tie this up we finished the night and then we headed to McDonald's after the show for some food followed by ice cream. Mmm.. Ice cream.
Now… there is a little thing about this gig in Dudley that I didn’t really see coming. Grace said to me, hey this gig is going to be a bit of a tough one for me. I said how come ?
We spoke privately and I reassured her that we will stand united and just go with the flow.
What ever, we got your back.
What happened next was an incredible night.
We all met up and then jumped in the van and headed off to Dudley which wasn’t that far away to be honest. Our load in time was 5pm and we arrived before any other bands.
We met with Billy (the sound engineer) who Grace knew from before and he said we could start setting up. Even though we were not on first, it made sense to make use of time and do a quick sound check.
There was also a cool back room to load the cymbal stands in pre set up. So Liam could just quickly throw them in front the kit to help speed up change over time.
We did our traditional fun awkward sound check and this was a proper old school pub, no stage to stand on just up close and personal on the pub floor.
I must admit I like these kind of gigs.
There was one monitor in the front of us and we were loud. But it felt great, next we met up with Primer and then White Crow.
Both of these bands we so so friendly and it made a real difference too, everyone was having fun, talking about this that and the other.
White Crow sound checked and then Primer, both bands sounded ace. The pub started to fill up being a Friday night and it was Free Entry.
As you know I don’t talk to much about the other bands on the bill, but definitely check out Primer and White Crow, they both had amazing songs and we were all up dancing along with everyone else. It was a blinding night.
We also had Mike back for this gig, which made a massive difference.
Yes we will always carry on a scheduled show if we are a person down if we can, but having him back with us just felt good to be back to full strength again.
From when the intro kicked in, the beat of the drum and the first chord struck.
Everything just clicked and we put on a killer show.
We did a 45 minute set list here and one of the many highlights for me and there was many... But one stood out, was when we started the final song “The Wild Strays”
It starts with a really mellow guitar piece from Grace and I would normally speak to the audience and Grace would step off the stage and wander into the crowd.
But this time, and I didn’t see where she went.
She walked behind me and around to the back of the pub, next thing her wireless guitar partly lost its signal, I started to play alongside Mike and Liam..but I swear she went outside into the street lol.
Next thing she appears back in sight and walks through the crowd and back onto the stage.
Smiles were all around the pub and once Grace joined us back onstage. A quick shout of 1-2-3-4 and we kick into the song.
A fantastic crowd, who were also nice and loud joining us on the “This Time its Personal" chants, leading into a huge finish.
We then packed down and then stuck around to enjoy Primers set.
We made so many new friends on this night and had people coming up say they totally enjoyed our show.
Billy did an amazing job with the sound and all credit goes to him for the stunning pictures he captured as well.
Below is a group picture of us Wild Strays with White Crow and Primer.
Next up we head to Cheltenham for our last show of these four gigs in a row.
It's been so much fun doing these gigs in quick succession and I will tell you all about it in the next episode.
Spoiler… Jake our old bass player also joined us on our adventure.
Until next time,
Keep it Wild.
KT
Before I go, those who follow us on Facebook may have seen our very own Grace Hale has been in and out of hospital this week, she has been through so much this year, and I just wanted to give her a personal shout out.
Get well soon Missy, from myself, Liam and Mike, we miss you x