What could be better than Finnegan's Wake?

That's right - a double header at Finnegan's Wake!!

Big thanks to Danny, we picked up an extra - our first Friday night - at Finnegan's on Friday 8th October. This was then followed by our "official" booking on Saturday 16th October. The challenge? To have two radically different setlists but keeping the handful of guaranteed crowd pleasers as well.

So, we rolled into Victoria Street on Friday 8th for the "extra" gig - and boy what a gig! The Friday crowd were every bit as enthusiastic as the usual Saturday crowd! Despite (personally) feeling pretty duff, we stormed into a selection featuring older stuff and some tracks which had never been played before. This gig also gave us the opportunity to take time in setting up the gear in a new way through the Finnegan's rig. Time well spent.... Where previously we were overdriving the house desk, this time we took a direct feed from our desk into the house amps! What a sound, what clarity! This was also the first gig at Finnegan's featuring my Roland GR-20 guitar synth and, my God, it sounds awesome through a good rig!

Following our first outing to Finnegan's on 18th September and subsequent "social" visits, our challenge was to stop the inevitable exodus at around 12.30am. We succeeded!!!

So, one week later and we were back... Gone was the comfort zone of familiar material in familiar places. Working a completely different set, this was a great opportunity to try a few new things - although the setlist kind of went out thew window as we adapted to crowd response. First new track (well, excepting a brave try the previous Friday) was Kings Of Leon's Sex On Fire. This second gig REALLY did it justice and we're now definitely confident it's a keeper! For the third gig running we also got the request for Summer Of 69 so despite Andy loathing the song (I love it) we cracked through a passable version even though it's never been rehearsed.

The night ended with yet another change... We always finish with David Bowie's Heroes, so much so Danny had cued up the video to play on the big screens in the background... And we ended with the first outing for our version of Runrig's Loch Lomond! It's nice not to be predictable!!

Only two glitches... The bass intro to Kaiser Chief's Oh My God left us thinking "Oh My God!" and, although we were recording the gig, the line input from the desk was so powerful that the recording was a distorted mush. Oh well, try again next time!

So, there we go - can't wait for the next batch of bookings at Edinburgh's finest!

Next up, our world tour of Scotland takes us further north than we've ever been before! The King Haaken Bar, Kyleakin, Skye!

Catch you soon and best of luv,

Neil