Saturday 9 September 2017

Fun at the Tooth & Claw, Inverness

WE’RE packed and on the road by midday…some stuff to drop off at Catriona and Will’s then up to Inverness.

After checking in at our B&B we drop some vinyl copies of the new album off at Union Vinyl – the owner’s enthusiastic and apologies he can;t come to the gig tonight – the first he heard of it was when he saw my Facebook ad this morning 🙁

We carry on to load in at The Tooth & Claw.

The upstairs venue is still in a bit of turmoil but manager/soundman James is on the case and soon I’m set up and soundchecked. It’s a pretty good room – good vibe and decent sound. 

We nip out to find some grub and notice that none of the music shops or other places with posters nearby have any posters for my show. Disappointing as we had a big bunch of posters printed and sent to the venue….there’s one up in the venue window, but other than that, nada.

The big ‘what’s on blackboard outside has a blank on tonight’s date. We query the blank and it appears “the guy that does that has been off sick”. I blu-tak some flyers on the board.

Sadly, it’s the same story we’ve found with most venues we hire for self-promo shows….they promote their own bookings but when a third party is taking the risk event details/visibility is minimal. Bizarre as you’d expect these places would want a busy night and maximise their bar sales. Moral of the story, I guess, is that we need someone ‘on the ground’ in place we’re doing self-promo shows…

Shame really, because we love the place, the people and the sound.

Regardless of  lack of promo support there’s a nice wee crowd in and I have a blast – two 45-minute sets – then time to catch up with folks and, after hours, share a little of the Glengoyne love.

It’s midnight when we retrieve the car from a nearby multi-storey, load out, grab a pizza and head back to the B&B.

After hours I share a dram of Glengoyne’s special ‘Dave Arcari’ single malt with soundman James, Joan and Bugsy 🙂