Lisa-Marie: Creative Ind Work Placement

BLOG 9:

The Brook, Southampton
This is one of our most favourite venues. We play here twice a year with both of our tribute bands. We have been playing here for over 8 years with the Dire Straits band and 4 years with the Blondie Band. We’ve been performing here so long now that we simply exchange an email at the start of the week with the owner to let them know what time we plan to arrive and that’s it!! All the PA is provided as it’s a Live Music venue and as we’ve been there so many times, we no longer even have to submit a stage plan or tech spec! We know where it is and how long it takes to get there so I don’t need to plan routes – but I do have to let the boys know our exact leaving time and Book hotel rooms for the Friday night.

We always have a rehearsal (refresh)the week of this booking(s) as it’s a ticket venue (like an informal theatre) and the guests are paying a lot of money and are usual die-hard fans so expect it to be a flawless performance.

We perform the Dire Straits on the Friday and Blondie on the Saturday. The Venue Owners prefer it this way around. It means I have a nice ‘warm-up’ gig playing percussion on the Friday before I take centre stage on the Saturday.

For this particular Blondie show, I do approx 6 costume changes and 2 wig changes. This alone requires a lot of organisation – as most are done mid-show whilst the band is still playing. It involves a lot of thought prior to the show and then organising everything off stage so that I can be as quick as possible with the changes. It’s a lot of work but I feel the attention to detail and the effort is worth it.

Total Hours on the Road: 39 Hours
Plus
3hrs - Learning new material (on my own in my own time - pre Rehearsal)
4.5hrs Rehearsal (Full-Band)
3hrs - Contacting Local Media to promote the shows
2hrs - Dealing with new enquiries and future bookings

http://www.the-brook.com/dates2012/08.2012.shtml

Atomic Blondie @ The Brook