The Lunatic Fringe

Well it’s been a while folks but let’s catch up on the weird and occasionally wonderful world of The Lunatic Fringe.

We’ve seen the departure of our original guitarist Mike Ford who left suddenly under a cloud of suspicion and recriminations, a decision which took the three remaining Lunatics completely by surprise. We hope that in the future good relations can be restored with Mike who we collectively and in all honestly wish all the best in everything he does.

Stepping into the breach was a ready made replacement in the shape of friend and long-time Lunatics fan Mr David Bennett. We generously gave Dai a whole hour of rehearsal before asking him to play his first gig with us at The Red Lion in Tredegar – predictably for such an able guitarist, he came through the test with flying colours, despite having quelled the nerves with a whole crate of Budweiser. A devotee of the Steve Vai style of guitaring, Dave has brought a totally different dynamic to the band and we have been tweaking the set-list accordingly. Despite being a resident of Merthyr , Dai hails from Wiltshire originally ensuring that the Anglo-Welsh composition of the band remains intact.

Eventful gigs have ensued in the weeks since Dave’sarrival, including memorable festival appearances at a gloriously sunny Brecon Fringe and miserably wet Talgarth. Our recent gig at The District in Ponty probably goes down as our best performance to date and luckily enough a few extracts were captured on video.

The gigs are coming in steadily and livers allowing we’ll be rolling into a town near you.  

Apologies for this being a blog free zone since March ? no excuses , just very busy.

Here?s a quick recap on where we?ve been and how we rated the gig:

HARLEY DAVIDSON RALLY ? Talgarth

Playing to a pub full of greasy bikers who?d been on the piss all day ? Excellent 8.5/10 and already rebooked for next year?s rally

FAGINS LLANHARAN ? Sunday gig , a bit hungover from the night before. Below Average 3/10.

RHONDDA HOTEL, PORTH ? Decent crowd with quite a few friends turning up ? Good gig 7/10

PATRIOTS , CRUMLIN ? Crowd up dancing in the 1st half . Great venue , organisers a  bit stand-offish. Good gig 7/10

RECKLESS ENGINEER , BRISTOL ? A shadow of it?s former self  and nearly empty. 5/10

FERNDALE RFC ? Another venue struggling with attendances. Bit rusty but enjoyable. 6.5 /10

Gordon Bennett's in Barry was switched at short notice from a Saturday night gig to the following day, unfortunately the good people of Barry were not informed. We ended up playing to a handful of punters in what would have been a cracking venue had a crowd been present. We're all pretty long in the tooth so we all accepted the situation as a paid practice and put it down to experience. A real missed opportunity.

Saturday night at The Pencelli in Treorchy was a completely different proposition. A good sized crowd this time and they all appeared to have a pretty good time. We debuted a couple of new songs Gimme Shelter and Arnold Layne, the latter been particularly well received. I lost count of the number of people that came up to us during the break to tell us that they'd never heard a covers band play any Barrett-era Floyd.

Onwards and upwards.

I?m told that I?ve been ignoring this section of the site, so here are a few reflections on our recent gigs. Usually it?s a case of, the less I remember ? the better the gig.

Pre ? Xmas we visited the Pencelli Hotel in Treorchy for the first time. Not a lot of room for a band full of XXLs but a decent enough crowd made us feel very welcome. ?Faith Healer? was particularly well received and we were coaxed into giving it a second airing as an encore. Note to band?? we?ve been rebooked to appear in March - next time make sure we point our amplifiers at the audience.

Our first gig in 2009 was a welcome return to The Olde Red Lion in Tredegar a splendid little venue that we?d really enjoyed playing a few months earlier. Landlord Neil had decided that this time we?d play in the bar instead of the back room. Looking at the space we?d been given when we arrived it didn?t seem possible to get Byron?s kit in, let alone the rest of the band. Nevertheless we all got in eventually and if we didn?t breath out we could just about get away with it. The gig itself was pretty good with plenty of positive feedback received from the knowledgeable crowd. Unfortunately, spirits high, we made the mistake of getting out the moonshine during the journey home and finishing the bottle off.  (?and it had all been going so well).

Ferndale Rugby the following week was familiar territory for most of the band. We?d even managed to persuade Matt, a friend of the band, to take control of the sound desk for the evening. Having somebody mix the sound from in front of the speakers proved to be highly successful and we?re hoping that he?ll be doing the job lots more in the future. As usual the Ferndale crowd were appreciative and friendly and we?re already looking forward to returning in July. It was also good to see our old mate Neil O?Brien having a rare night off from beating the skins with Broken Heroes. He was last seen disappearing up the hill towards home with four very attractive women in tow (unfortunately one of the women was his wife ? bad luck sunshine!).

Slowly but surely the gigs are starting to come in for 2009 but we could definitely do with a lot more. If anyone reading this fancies generating some bookings for us there?s 15% commission in it for them. That?s a serious offer by the way.

TLF (26.02.09)

Not a venue that we will be returning to unless there is a change of ownership. Bands booked to play this venue should take heed, you run the risk of some shoddy treatment.

Having turned up at the appropriate time to begin our set at 7.15pm we were informed via a phonecall from the landlady that she didn't want us to start our set until 8.30. When it was pointed out to her that this wasn't what was agreed when we took the booking she called us all liars. This was despite the fact that there was a load of our posters on display in the pub clearly stating a 7pm start.

Suitably annoyed, we compromised on a 7.45 start and performed a shortened set, collected our money and left the pub as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for the punters that were there our obvious irritation resulted in a prefunctory performance that won't have done our reputation in Pontlottyn any favours.  Given that the crowd consisted of mainly pissed-up youngsters not interested in our type of music, we won't be losing any sleep over it.

Thank goodness there are still a few pub owners out there that treat bands with respect rather than a commodity to be exploited.

Our weekend mini-tour of Tredegars got off to a cracking start at a new venue for us - The Olde Red Lion. Neil , the owner ( a muso himself ) has done a lovely job kitting out his backroom as a music bar. Classic rock tracks blast out over the sound system, mood lighting (including a rather annoying permanently on green laser) ,walls adorned with posters of famous rock acts and an exteremely good pint of Guinness - almost perfect !

The crowd , including quite a few old friends from the locality, turned up just in time to catch our first set which didn't kick off until 9.45pm. Despite not having played live for over a month our performance was nice and tight and after electing to drive our PA with a 2k power amp the sound was crystal clear. Unfortunately the gig couldn't have passed off trouble-free - a dodgy lead was responsible for blowing one of the high-end speakers resulting in a column of smoke being emitted in the second half as we wound up the volume.

Unfortunately for Mike on the way home he elected to sample a bottle of Serbian Moonshine that we keep for special occasions - not a good idea with another gig the following day.

The Ruperra gig was decent enough. Not a massive crowd and with the strange layout of the pub it's quite difficult to generate an atmosphere. Mike was unsurprisingly suffering with a king-sized hangover but didn't let it interfere with his performance. What a pro !

Thankfully the PA didn't show any signs of permanent damage and our set was politely received. Even a couple of pensioners propping up the bar paid us the honour of staying to see our full performance as they told us that we sounded better than most bands that play there. Tidy.

We've just taken a rebooking for the 10th January at The Old Red Lion after the landlord received tons of positive feedback from his punters. Looking forward to it already.  

Review from Mike's District Blog :

 It never fails to surprise us that every year when Nicky heads off for his annual holiday to the US attendances immediately improve. Coincidence, I'll let you decide ?

With Deamon and Gaynor looking after the business end of things and the soundcheck taken care of early , we in the band had plenty of time to get our gig-heads on in the time honoured District fashion, outside with the serious smokers.

The Lunatics have only been gigging seriously for couple of months, but although we've been getting lots of positive feedback wherever we've played, it's still quite daunting to play at a venue where you know that the audience knows a thing or two about live music. Knowing most of the people in the crowd can also be a bit of a mixed blessing - if you're shit you'll soon be told.

I'll not dwell too long on our performance other than to say that I think that we played reasonably well. Mike our guitarist pulled out all the stops for our version of Like a Hurricane and Johnny Norris blew some lovely harp when he guested on Back Door Man.

We rounded off the evening with an encore of Hawkwind's Silver Machine which as usual descended into a extended jam.

A real fun night for us Lunatics, I know I'm a bit biased but there really aren't many better venues to play in South Wales.

Banwen Festival:

A real strange one this, a room full of kids waiting for the Disco to start.

Not really our type of crowd or time of day - far too early ! Nevertheless we enjoyed ourselves and look for forward to our next visit to sunny Banwen.

There's very little that I can say about this gig, it turned out to be a private party for The Outlaws (or Valley Commandos) MCC held at their clubhouse. We had a tremendous welcome from the guys who looked after us extremely well all night.

Without going into too much detail all I can say is that normal rules do not apply at this particular venue (and it's all the better for it). Security is tight.

We had a blast and were asked back for so many encores that we eventually ran out of material. We were promised a sackful of gigs at various biker events nationwide on the strength of our performance and left the venue having won over a large and extremely critical audience.

The Park Hotel appeared to have undergone a few changes since our last visit. A new stage area had appeared and new owners. One thing that hadn't changed though was that the bar was almost completely empty when we arrived. The barmaid reassured us that the crowd would be along soon (we'd heard that one before) but what do you know - she was right. By the time we started our first set the audience had swollen to healthy proportions with several old acquaintances from various parts of Gwent and Merthyr in attendance. It soon became apparent that something else had changed at The Park - the atmosphere. It didn't take long for us to realise that we'd be receiving more than just the polite applause that had accompanied our previous visits with other bands. These guys were enthusiastic and intent on partying. Tidy !

We played two great sets and were rewarded with several encores with the crowd baying for more long after we'd finished our last song. You can't ask for better than that.

Of course the night couldn't have passed by without any problems - this time it was the immobiliser on the van. At 2 am we were still in the car park of the hotel waiting for the AA to arrive. We eventually got hope in time for a chat with our postman who was starting out on his round.

It was a refreshing change to arrive at the pub on a balmy summer's night rather than in the arctic blizzard that coincided with our last trip to Abertillery. Good news also to learn that we would be playing in the downstairs bar and therefore avoiding the perilous, near vertical stairs to the Function Room that we were all dreading.

Not exactly a bumper crowd to play to but those that were there let us know in no uncertain terms that they were enjoying what we were doing. Our first half performance was rounded off with a magnificent rendition of "Like a Hurricane" that Mike is managing to take to stratospheric proportions with his final guitar solo.

A brief detour to Newport on the way to collect Mike also meant that he was able to indulge in the customary pre-gig "looseners" that myself and Steve enjoy. The half-time break was taken outside the pub with a drink and a smoke,  perfectly complimenting the magnifcent views across the valley.

Suitably chilled, our second half  set was as good as any we've played, with a particularly strong version of "All too Much" and then closing with "Relax". The crowd wanted more so we gave them a version of Hawkwind's "Silver Machine". It sounded nothing like it did in rehearsal but The Lunatics are a band that like a bit of space to improvise. There was only one way to bring the gig to a close and that was to invite our great friend Neil Fisher, who was along for the ride, on stage for some trademark balls-out vocals. We picked a blues riff in A and left the rest to Neil. Unsurprisingly he brought the house down.

Our performances seem to be going from strength to strength and not only did we put in a pleasing and on times inspired gig we all enjoyed a very pleasant evening out together in good company.