Here's the Gilded Balloon's new venue Patter Hoose, the way it looked last night at about 8 o'clock. It was still way more ready than me.
Every year when we come up to Edinburgh, the first important task is my get-in and soundcheck. I've been doing it for over a decade now, and pride myself in having one of the smoothest and shortest get ins. It never takes more than 20 minutes. I get complimented on it and thanked by my technicians, with whom I go on to have a marvellous working month.
And so it was I was all set for my soundcheck to take place on Tuesday night at 8pm. On Monday night, settled into our new flat, I took a wee walk around to look at the outside of my new venue (above), then Hev & I sat down to watch University Challenge at 8.30. At 8.45 I get a phone call from the head of production asking "Kev, where are you?".
My soundcheck was on Monday, not Tuesday. I'd misread the email!
On Monday morning, in my hotel room in Newcastle before setting off, I'd read the email from Meredith in production which said "
Hope this finds you well, unfortunately there’s been a schedule conflict – I’m need to have to push your tech time back to 8pm – 9pm tomorrow night. Apologies for any inconvenience!". I replied saying that was okay and that I'd see them at 8pm.
So, I thought, my soundcheck's been moved forward a day, that's fine. Like an idiot, I didn't realise Meredith had written the email on Sunday night. So when she said "tomorrow" she meant today. I am an idiot.
I rushed to the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, and have never been more grateful for being so close to my venue. It's only 5 minutes away, closer than I've ever been. Luckily my technician, Florence, had agreed to stay on another half hour so we could get it done. This was going to be easy.
All I had to do, as I always do, and as I'd had practice doing last weekend in Bedford, was hand the CD with all my music on to the technician, erect my set while she was copying the songs over, or whatever it is they do, we'd agree on the lights, we'd quickly run through my songs to get my voice balanced right over the top of them, we'd find the place where I am to store my set for the month, and twenty minutes later I'd be out of there. Exactly like we've done it for the last 10 years.
Except this year there is no CD player, and no laptops that can copy from a CD. I needed my tracks on data stick or sent by Drop Box. (There had undoubtedly been an email telling me this, which I'd read as carefully as the "8pm tomorrow" email.) I had anticipated the data stick thing, which I've had with other venues, and was going to copy over my tracks ready for a Tuesday soundcheck. But now it was too late. I had them on my ipod, which didn't help, and my phone, which they couldn't copy from either. The only way they could do it (they being Florence and the head of technical whose name has escaped me in the sweaty blur that the night was becoming) was copying the tracks from my laptop.
So I ran back to the flat, got the laptop, made sure I had a datastick, and ran back to the venue. Ten minutes of our precious extra time had already been used up. Then I had to copy the tracks from itunes to the datastick, which with sweaty fingers didn't happen right the first time, then Flo had to copy them into QLab, which involved numbering them because, of course, the beauty of the Socks simple sound cues is we just ask the technician for the next track every time. But when you copy them over, suddenly their order disappears.
Half an hour had been eaten up already by this rigmarole, and we hadn't got as far as hearing my voice over the music. Eventually we got to soundchecking the first song (I'm A Sock) and had just about got the sound balance right when Florence ran out of time. It was 9.50 at night and she'd been told she had to get out of the building. I'd wasted an extra hour of her time and we hadn't finished the soundcheck.
On the plus side, I have a great storage area for my set, and I know we'll get it right on the night. One year, 2009 I think, the show itself was my soundcheck as I didn't arrive in Edinburgh until the afternoon of the first night, and that worked out fine. I'm used to playing at comedy clubs where you don't even get a soundcheck. Of course this cock-up (my fault, I have to reiterate) has to happen with the show which has more sound cues than any previous one (15 tracks, when others have as few as 9), but that's the way it crumbles cookie-wise.
It's the morning of the next day and I'm still shaking slightly. Blimey, this old frame hasn't seen that much sweaty exercise and blind panic in a while, obviously. Welcome to Edinburgh.
Oor Wullie on the Royal Mile, and why not.
PS: And we saw Boris. Well, almost. While we were in the car on our way to pick up the keys to our flat from our estate agent in the New Town, a flotilla of black diplomatic cars with police outriders held up the traffic to sweep through. That was Boris on his way to see Nicola Sturgeon. First star spot of the season.
July 31st - August 25th, The Scottish Falsetto Socks ROLL UP! at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 9.30pm, every night of the Edinburgh Fringe 2019. Sexy new venue, sexy new timeslot. Book now!
