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Monday 16 May 2011

The Chain House Gig

As stated in my previous blog post, my UK friends and I had some Canadian friends come over for a visit. We had always raved about a band called The Chain and we thought it would be fantastic if we could all see them at the same time. So...that's how the House Gig came about. After a bit of organising, The Chain were due to arrive at my friend's house on the 13th May.

My friend Danika and I had planned to cater the entire evening (and by "catering", we mean "cakes") so, after the Sam Beeton gig the night before I stayed over and rose early the next day to go shopping. After discovering that Ben, the male singer in the band, was actually lactose intolerant we had to be careful what to buy! If you ever need dairy free whipping cream go to your nearest health shop!

We started baking round about 2pm. We stuck on a few tunes and pretty much baked the entire day. 60 cupcakes and one Victoria Sponge! But it was fantastic fun having someone to bake with and I was excited for the evening - I hoped everyone liked them and was eager to hear comments! I'm not really much of a cook so felt like a 4 year old kid wanting to show off their crappy drawing hoping they'll be told they're the next Picasso.



We timed the whole thing perfectly; literally as soon as we finished putting the cakes in the living room, setting up the room and doing the odd finishing touches, our friends arrived and shortly after the band did too! Ben was as funny as ever with Kate and Andy both being lovely as always. The atmosphere was very warm and friendly and it was hard to believe that this band - who we barely knew about just over a year ago - were holding an exclusive house gig just for us. Bit of a surreal "look how much has changed and how lucky are we?" moment.

A few minutes after the band arrived, guess who else did? Jimmy and Cat! Jimmy is best friends with Ben and also the bass player for Mika, so we actually found out about The Chain through Jimmy. Cat is Jimmy's very wonderful fiance; so easy to talk to with a good sense of humour and just generally loveliness in human form. Anyway, forget the history and the details! All of these amazing people were in one place at the same time.

The cakes were going down a storm; everyone really liked them and were impressed they were all dairy free! And of course Ben really appreciated it, too!

The entire evening was just full of banter and tons of laughter. The night really could not have gone better and even as I write this blog I can't help but grin stupidly at the memories. It was just such a fun, lively atmosphere and truly a perfect way for the Canadians to end their trip to the UK.

The band tested a few new songs out on us which was fantastic to hear! It was just awesome to have the band sitting right in front of us performing without any weirdos (i.e. drunk ladies doing a weird dance) or strangers around us talking throughout the entire set or anything - house gigs over pub gigs all the way!

Naturally I recorded all the songs! Unfortunately, all the footage I took during the baking of cakes took up a lot of memory so after a while I had to start using my photo camera which meant the quality wasn't as good, but at least it's still all there!
Here they all are, I hope you enjoy them!

I DON'T LOVE YOU LIKE I USED TO & TWISTED GAME OF LOVE


LINCOLN BOULEVARD & ST. CECILE


HIT ME LIKE A HURRICANE & LOVELESS NIGHTS


THE HEART & NEW SONG


NEW SONG & THE COLOUR WAS BLUE


TWO NEW SONGS


HEAD IN THE SAND


COVER - "1, 2, 3, 4"


And here are some pictures:

Crowd!

The band

Jimmy, me and Cat

Ben

Group!

UK and Canadians
Just another big massive thank you to the band and Jimmy and Cat for doing this gig for us and for your entertainment in general. Another massive thanks to Danika for holding the gig at her place, and another thanks to the Canadians for coming over...because if it wasn't for that occassion, this house gig wouldn't have happened at all.

See you all in the near future!

2 comments:

c a t f a c e said...

Love the blog. Loved the night! Great pics. Here's to more House Concerts.
Big love
Cat x

CazStacey said...

Epic doesn't quite describe that night, I can't remember the last time I laughed so much! Definitely would love to have more house gigs!

x x x