An intense, but magnificent weekend

The weekend was a rather ridiculous one but, after lots of theatrical tomfoolery recently it was great to focus properly on the drum/percussional aspect of my life. I'm very grateful that I can do both things, but sometimes it's great to just hit my glorious drums with sticks. The dress rehearsal on Friday night with Dowsing was long, but exciting; it was the coming together of everything - the choir, the band, the strings, the trumpet, the beatboxer. It also highlighted the scale of the project, which is sometimes difficult to judge when it's just five of you in a band rehearsal, but the thing I've learnt about Dowsing is that you can never underestimate how complicated this could get. In a good way, of course, I'm quite into complicated things.

On Saturday I was up stupidly early to head down to Cardiff to play at the International Food Festival with Fred's House. The thing I like about this band, apart from the music, of course (that bit is a given or else I wouldn't still be drumming for them after this long) is the way in which we can all be tired, grumpy but still get along. That's the sign of a special bond, that is. The gigs themselves were great; the first was without our lead guitarist Lachlan as he travelled separately and got caught up in traffic (bit unfortunate that three major events were happening in Cardiff on the same day) so it was a 'different' set - still enjoyable, but the material had to be carefully chosen for us to pull it off. We had a lengthy gap before the second performance in which we ate excessive amounts of pizza and Gaf got annoyed that nobody wanted to join him on a boat trip. The second performance was a joy; we were fired up on Red Bull and blasted through it (throwing in a cheeky cover of 'Stealers Wheel' in the middle was a masterstroke by Griff), huge audience - absolutely huge. Nice sound, nice equipment, cracking gig. Long trip home, because clearly after years and years they still haven't finished repairing the A14.

5 hours sleep, and then up for band soundchecks at the stunning Apex venue in Bury. I've heard lots of things about this venue but purposely kept my expectations low...needn't had bothered though, it's a beautiful room, the kind of room that as a musician you want to play every week. Soundchecks flew by, all seemed well. Bit like the show in Cardiff the day before this was another '2 shows in 1 day' thing - which I think always should be the way, if you've taken the time to soundcheck for hours the least you can do is get a couple of shows out of it. The first performance had it's problems, nothing can hide that fact. We seemed to lose communication with half of the band - Dave (our magnificent stand-in bassist) Sam and myself seemed to be on a different beat to Andrea at some points as we were having a few monitoring issues; the odd tempo glitch is usually recoverable, this was pushing it a bit far. Dowsing always has the sense that it could crumble at any moment such is the complexity of the project but it never does. It came bloody close during 'Terrible Love' - ironically probably the easiest song for me as I know it so well, but we just couldn't lock in, I had no idea what was going on around me, I couldn't hear much apart from my battering snare drum, I could feel the panic from everyone else around me. God knows how the choir kept going. It was pointed out to me later on that track got the biggest applause from the audience afterwards, which suggested it wasn't as bad as I had feared. Oh come on, let's be honest, it was. Got through the rest of the first show playing everything down, just getting through it. Audience gave the performance a standing ovation, I went straight to the dressing room and moaned more than anybody should.

Dinner and a good rant before the second show, Andrea remained remarkably positive - she has a lot of faith in her team, it means a lot in these moments. We had another quick soundcheck with the band and got the monitors up a bit, and the second show began. The second show was really strong, we could hear each other better, there was a bit of an edge to it. Everyone seemed on form - collectively it seemed to explode into something remarkable, the smiles had returned, the stress had gone - this was challenging fun, the best kind of fun, I've often found. Our guests for both shows - folk duo Megson, and beatboxer Skilly Skills, were magnificent both times and also incredibly lovely as well, I shall certainly check out more of their work. I went through a wide range of emotions on Sunday - it really is a rollercoaster being part of this. But at the end of the day, The Dowsing Sound Collective is exactly that; a collective. And together - thanks to the way the incomparable Andrea has put this together - it continues to produce magic; spectacular, musical magic.

Things are going up a few notches this moment; a lot of things are there to bother me; moving house - because my legendary landlord/housemate/friend is moving in with the girl of his dreams (I am genuinely happy for him - they are the definition of 'perfect couple') and still not entirely sure where I'll be going yet - looking at a house tomorrow which looks great so fingers crossed, sorting insurance/other legal/admin bits for theatrical projects, the health of a close family member which I've lost countless nights sleep worrying about. And yes; the Edinburgh Fringe is creeping up very quickly. Although rehearsals are behind schedule, there's a very clear plan now to what I'm doing and it'll be fine; we have the solo show (me being me, doing what I think I do best), the sitcom show (which is bloody enjoyable and should be the most accessible of all my shows) and the experimental heavy drama show (which I've poured my soul into - not wishing to give away the plot but it ends with me collapsing from the stress of it all...this could be my finest work yet, but equally could be dreadful). I've started to realise recently I'm a better person on stage; off stage I'm far too chatty which I imagine must get annoying (just ask the ex-girlfriends), on stage I know what I'm doing - I know how to drum, and for the comedy stuff the chatting is considered to be part of the act so I can bloody ramble away. The stage is really where I feel at home; which is cool because I'm on various types of them pretty much continuously for the next 9 weeks or so.