7th February, 2006: One Long Day

I had a very long, but enjoyable day yesterday. Once again I boarded a Virgin train from Birmingham to London bright and early. My first port of call was meeting up with my new-found colleague Matt. We then headed over to a studio, armed with a London A-Z to meet up with a potential new client. Said client isn’t really that new to me…but they shall remain nameless for now, until we know we’re definitely doing the project – fingers crossed though!

After the meeting we headed back to King’s Cross, and after reporting an abandoned back to station security (it was rather posh leather handbag, and King’s Cross didn’t get levelled that day so I can only assume it wasn’t a bomb) Matt headed home and I walked around the corner to The Scala where Imogen Heap was playing her sold out show that night. Luckily I’d timed it just right and everyone had arrived shortly before me, so I managed to get in without any waiting around….makes a nice change!

I’d not been inside for more than 15 minutes when I was asked to go on an errand – Immi’s sustain pedal for keyboard wasn’t working! She’d just bought it that day after leaving her old on in America by mistake, but the new one she tried in the shop wasn’t now working with her keyboard at the venue. So I was asked to go across town to the music shop and change it. No problem I thought…as I was on my way on the Tube they announced that Tottenham Court Rd station (my destination) had been closed due to a security alert (my mind flashed back to the unattended bag at King’s Cross!), the message soon changed to ‘closed due to faulty safety equipment’ whatever that means. So I got off the Tube at Goodge Street and made my way down to Denmark Street (the music street in London). Fortunately the Centre Point building is bloody massive, so I could see roughly where I was heading for!

I arrived at the shop to and explained the situation to the guy, who unsurprisingly remembered Imogen from earlier in the day. (I can’t imagine they get many 6 foot female bohemian gypsy look-a-likes in the shop!). I explained the pedal situation and asked to swap it for another model, but this guy ‘had been working with these instruments for years’ and knew ‘if the one I gave you didn’t work, the problem is with your keyboard not the pedal’ – I tried to explain that I understood that, but I wanted to swap the pedal and at least TRY another one before we had to get another keyboard at the last minute. But he was having non of it! So I got on the phone to Kumar (Immi’s tour manager) and got him to talk to the guy. Begrudgingly he agreed to switch the pedals, while once again explaining how the was no chance this would sort the problem out. To his credit he gave me his home number to call if we needed any advice later in the evening and didn’t charge us the £10 extra the replacement pedal was worth, but he wasn’t very gracious about the whole affair – hence me not mentioning his shop’s name here and plugging him to the millions of people reading my blog, now he’s sorry!!!

So pedal in bag, I headed back over to The Scala. Got inside, found Immi soundchecking, gave her the pedal and crossed my fingers….it worked fine! So the moral of the story is – don’t always believe ‘expert’ music shop staff, they aren’t that good! So yeah, basically I save the day and stopped 900+ people from having to miss the show! (Or at least that’s what I’ll let myself think!)

After messing around on the merch stall with Steve it was show time and the place filled up. Was nice to see a few friends I’d not seen for a while, so I hung out before catching some of the support acts. Zoë Keating has been on tour with Immi for a while and plays during her set and she’s great – plays Cello and samples and layers her music, very good! Next up was a guy who goes by the name ‘Duracell’ – he’s a one-man drum/synth machine! He has syths wired up to his drums, so what he hits a drum you not only get the sound of the drum, but also a synth note as well. He then pounds the crap out of the drums while playing the synth theme tunes to early Atari and Commodore computer games! I’ve never seen anything like it – by the end of his 20 minute set he was on the verge of passing out and ringing wet with sweat – thoroughly entertaining!

Before long it was time for Immi’s set. And it was brilliant. I realise I’m ’supposed’ to say that because I work with Immi, but I’m saying because I thought it was fantastic! I was so proud of her last night.

Photo: Richie Mills

I thought the sound was by far the best at any of the UK shows I’ve seen (down to former Dum Dums soundman-extraordinaire Mike ‘Biff Benson), it was really kicking and the visuals & lighting were awesome. A guy called Mox was mixing and triggering the visuals live – most of the footage was pre-recorded and he was ‘mixing’ it in together with camera footage at the gig live during the show, which I thought was amazing! There was some amazing footage of Immi dancing against a white screen as well as a shot which mixed a live camera of Immi playing piano in with some footage of driving down a highway, essentially giving the effect that she was speeding along the road while playing her piano – it looked awesome!

I also especially enjoyed the moments where Immi came out from behind her gear (it’s a big set up!) and sang and danced in the middle of the stage – that was really a highlight for me because she’s so full of energy, it’s almost a shame that she’s stuck behind the keyboard so much – I hope in the future she comes out front even more. I really like what Zoe added to the songs too, it was really cool have some live instrumentation – ‘Can’t Take It In’ (from the Narnia soundtrack) really worked well with the grand piano and live cello.

All in all, it was a superb night – two thirds of the way through I was already thinking about the upcoming show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire – I can’t wait!

After the show I helped Steve out on the merch stall as it got really busy, then said a few goodbyes to friends before heading up to the aftershow bar. I felt a bit guilty leaving Steve to pack up the merch and count the money, but he was being paid to do that and I wasn’t, and he insisted I go and mingle with record company people etc. so off I went. I arrived in the bar just as Immi did, so I told her I was buying her a drink, ordered the drinks and then she insisted that she paid, so I gave in and enjoyed a nice cold beer and told her that I thought the show was fucking awesome – she seemed really happy herself and very pleased with the reaction.

Eventually as things were winding down Steve appeared, it was just after 1am at this point and he was driving us 125 miles back to Birmingham. But first we had to trek all the way down to Streatham where Immi’s tour production company are based and unload the van, in the rain. Nice.

We finally left London at 1:55am – homeward bound. I struggled to stay awake on the later part of the journey and talked a load of rubbish at Steve to make sure he didn’t fall asleep. I’m sure I must have sounded incoherent at times! The never-ending blackness of the motorway finally ended and I got dropped off at 4:30am. Ten minutes later my head hit the pillow and I was out in seconds. Unfortunately Steve had to return the hire van by 8:30am that morning…unlucky!