July 2008 - Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ)Monthly Archive

Was a really good gig on Friday night!

For those who didn’t make it, we played ‘unplugged’ at Le Rock, Brigade Street on Friday the 18th. We took some electric guitars along but couldn’t use ‘em. Playing the Turner steel-string, I had two dratted cables coming out – the soundhole pickup and the saddle transducer – so I was twice plugged actually! We don’t really own an acoustic bass, so Rzu was on his new Ibanez 5-string as usual. I guess Rajeev was the only true ‘acoustic’ player for the night.
There was a darn good crowd – the place was packed to the rafters. Lots of old friends and bookends.

Started with some solo Pink interpretations of Floyd tunes.. important songs these are. Haven’t lost their bite in 30 or 40 years. The Vocalist Live 4 did an amazing job really – doing 3-part harmonies on Goodbye Blue Sky alone was quite a trip! I could see quite a few surprised faces looking around for the hidden backup singers! Band came in and we jammed into Brigade St. – not very often we get to play that tune on Brigade street. Straight away we knew this was a special night – you know how it is when the band nails breaks on completely improvised jams together: playing with one mind, the trio merged into a uno magnifico stereo mono entity… great fun. The wah-wah worked great on the aforementioned double-plugged acoustic. Our song for world AIDS day, Keep the Promise, followed and got some folks singing.
Played through a few newer tracks, including the brand new blues Grab Me, Simply Be (which we dedicated to old friend  and fan Suresh Raju, off to Prague, following the Sun), Origami (which everyone knows now, somehow) and so on. Did some Cat Stevens as well. Thought we’d wrap up with the new Won’t Stop, (for all the artists who shouldn’t), but ended up doing two encores.

Super fun gig overall. Thanks to the peoples at the Le Rock and everybody else that made it possible.  Honestly, we didn’t go into this with a great deal of positive energy – especially after doing a spot with Radio Murky, er, Mirchi, that involved two 5-second clips of TAAQ songs (“can’t play any more, you see we are regional channel..” ); after finding that Skinny Alley was playing the same night at Opus; after discovering we couldn’t have Vinay, our usual sound engineer at the gig; and after meeting a big galoot outside the pub supposedly covering the event for Mirchi with a ‘live-feed’ – said galoot was standing alongside a 10-foot promo cutout of the band with “Thermal And A Quarter” emblazoned in flaming foot-high letters, our mugs badly photoshopped alongside… and the first thing he asks us is – “So, which band are you from?” Gadzooks. All’s well that ends well I suppose.

Will put up some pics soon as I have ‘em.

Cheerio!