Monday 6 June 2011

REVIEW – STUDLEY PARK BOATHOUSE, KEW-AUSTRALIA

MADLLIPS played a private function on Saturday night at the historic Studley Park BoatHouse in Kew. Nice old building and a bit tricky for a band to play in. They set up a dance floor for the guests for an extra $300 which left us with the option of setting up in another room which faced the dance floor or half on the dance floor which then took in that room and another room making a larger dancing area… half with dance floor and the rest with carpet.  We opted for the second and went ahead and set up amps, racks, foldback, front of house lighting tree, blacks and back drops. Did a sound check and then went and got changed into our suits for the gig.

Imagine our horror when the owner turns up and says he will not allow anyone to dance on the carpet because women’s high heels will wear it out. If anyone does dance on the carpet, he will cut the power and stop the gig… Not much room to manoeuvre with that kind of statement, and would have been SOOO good if that snippet of information was relayed before we set up. We dutifully unplugged cables, dismantled rigs and man handled speaker boxes and moved it into the other room so we had only the designated dancing area in front of us.

So there we go, starting the gig already hot and sweaty from setting up twice and half knackered as well. Luckily, the couple had a great night. And most people had lots of fun dancing and drinking. There were areas where the older people could escape the dance music and sit and chat. The finger food was ok but we have had better… and as always there was one character that had drunk way too much and demolished the table where the tea, coffee and hot water urn was set up by trying to sit on it.

Anyway, all in all a successful night if not with a shaky start

See ya at the next gig
Ken


http://www.madllips.com/