Gig report: Dowsing For Sound @ Great St. Mary's Church, Cambridge

Band: Dowsing For Sound (5 piece band and 40-strong choir)
Venue: Great St. Mary's Church, Cambridge
Date: 29/01/11
Audience: Possibly the best audience in the history of gigs.
Set: White Sky, Go Your Own Way, Diferente, Heart Of Life, Alive; interval; Train, Terrible Love, Maria, Edge Of Night, Indian Wars, Peace Train, Book Of Love, Takk, Hoppipolla, Afterwhile, One Day Like This; encore - Radioactive
Notes: I just don't know where to start with this one. I'm still hungover from the celebrations afterwards, I'm still buzzing about it - this felt like a once in a lifetime gig, a moment that could never be repeated, a magnificent mix of excitement, nerves, ambition, all exploding into something spectacular, much bigger than we could have expected. It was a long day - just before midday soundchecks/rehearsals started, loose ends were tied up, the difficulties of getting the perfect sound for 40 superb singers over my highly resonating snare drum. It was a show that been built up by all of us for a good while now (well, a month in my case), the feeling that we were on the verge of something special mixed with the fear that it could all fall apart at any moment. Sounds dramatic? You probably needed to be there. I play a lot of gigs, nothing could compare to last night. After dinner (in which, randomly, we saw (and a few of the girls met) Kelly Jones from Stereophonics at the Eagle pub), we returned to the venue and sooner or later the audiences started arriving. And then more arrived, and then more. They were queuing down the street. I heard we were approaching 500 ticket sales in advanced - we're sure that it looked like double that who actually turned up on the night, I had mates who were waiting outside not sure if they could get in, we had to open the balcony (even though we weren't keen to) just to fit everyone in. There was a buzz about the place, the audience looked excited, expectant, all of the word of mouth (and good work of Honey PR) clearly did the trick. A few of us were getting pretty nervous, and I never get nervous before a gig. But this was much more than a gig. Because of the unexpected huge turnout we delayed the start of the show, eventually it started about 20 minutes late. And the actual gig itself? We fucking stormed it. From the opening bars of White Sky to the stomping Alive, the first half relieved any nerves. Diferente, with it's Latin-tinged groove, was a personal highlight - and it was the first time we had got the ending right, ever. After a cheeky backstage shot of whiskey and change of clothes for the second half (after the brilliant Sarah Outen inspired us with her tales of adventure), we were back on again for the longer, more testing set. Terrible Love sent shivers down my spine...proper, uncontrollable shivers, building into a crashing conclusion. Peace Train took things to a whole new level - the choir were boisterous, the band funky, everyone following Andrea's masterful conducting, this was a team - a team who hadn't played together for long, gelling, a force to be reckoned with. But it was by Book Of Love that it really hit home how good this choir had begun. They sang so beautifully I stood at my congas, admired them all, smiled bigger than I ever have done before, and missed my cue to start playing. The band improvised rendition of Takk showed a darker side to our musicianship, before Hoppipolla built and built to a level that felt like we could take the roof off the place, and lots of people in the audience cried (in a good way). One Day Like This ended the set on a rousing note, met by a unanimous standing ovation and an atmosphere that in my ten and a half years of gigging I've never witnessed before. Our encore was a rocky, uptempo version of Radioactive by Kings Of Leon, with both the choir and band at full throttle. Gav's bass solo, Nicky's conga solo and Steve's guitar solo were all outstanding, my drum solo was lively enough until I lost all sense of discipline and overplayed it, but it's fine - we were all on top of the world, by now we couldn't do a thing wrong. (technically I did a fair few things wrong, nobody would have noticed). Andrea Cockerton is a genius - it still baffles me how she put this all together, and then made it work, she created a monster - a musical monster that challenged, inspired, and produced a show of epic proportions. We all got drunk at the Varsity afterwards for our aftershow party, it was lovely. Everything else in life for the next few days will seem a bit boring, to be honest. I was worried about Saturday's gig - I even woke up in the middle of the night and threw up with nerves. I'm an experienced musician with a respectable CV of playing complex material in front of big audiences, this shouldn't have worried me - but, like everyone else there last night, this was a project that had taken over our lives, we grew to love the material and care about the songs, the vibe, so much. I can't express how much respect I have for everyone involved, and now it looks like we'll be doing it all again later in the year, I'm wary because I don't know if we'll better that, if our expectations will change, but (schedule permitting) equally I can't wait to see if we can pull it off again. All of my best friends were there last night (one or two of whom I didn't expect to see, which makes it even nicer that they made the effort), we may have been a bit stressed in the run-up to the show, we may have cut things fine, but we triumphed, big time. One of the best gigs I've ever played? More than that, probably one of the best nights of my life.