Choons, Chilling and Chester

He looked at me as if to say "bust a move or I'll bust your gut"

We are just over halfway with our stint of north Wales, combining Cath's tour, Dai's tour and some schools work and by some miracle we managed to end up with a day off! We heard about the various charms and attractions that Chester offered, only an hour and a bit away along the A55, so after a lie-in and a leisurely breakfast we pootled across in the VW to see what we could see; cruising to the latest offerings from Soul Survivor and Beth bullock.
In the end, we couldn't see as much of chester as we had liked, because as soon as we reached the park and ride, a dense mist had set in all across the city. We weren't put off though, so we soldiered on into town, stopping off at a few shops in the main shopping centre before breaking into our individual errands around town. Dai opted for the Wifi in starbucks, Cath wanted to have a nose around Jack Wills and I found myself walking around not even looking at the shops, but looking at all the old buildings that there were.

There is an archway halfway down the main shopping street in Chester, which I found could be accessed from the street and forms part of the city wall that encompasses the city centre. I had an hour to kill so I decided to have a quick stroll around and see what cultural tit-bits I could find along the way.

Part of the city wall

As well as learning bits of the history of chester and seeing how the old city has integrated with the demands of 21st Century travel infrastructure (Roads needing widening and turning part of the wall into a footpath over the railway) I found remains of some buildings built by the Romans, including a half-uncovered Amphitheatre near one of the city gates.
The wall is almost continuous around the city centre, breaking only once by the river for a road to go over. At one point the castle, which now accommodates part of the university, looks over the weir almost menacingly. The castle was a royalist stronghold when they were fighting against the parliamentarians and also served as a base for attacks against the Welsh.

I hope some day I can go back to chester when it's sunny and there's no mist, although the mist did lend itself to a sort of victorian london look, making the Abbey and tudor-style shops look quite majestic and timeless.

Share the wealth

As promised, here is one of the songs recorded at The Depot in the Swansea Grand Theatre, enjoy.

A talented cast

Well that was exciting!

Library Photo

First night of The Tentmaker 2011 tour has come and gone and I must say it's a great feeling to have survived the new format. It was also a great chance to test out some shiny new sound equipment that Going Public have just bought.

Breaking from tradition, the play had a support act beforehand in the form of the elegant Miss Beth Bullock and her songwriting skills. If you haven't heard beth before I recommend you hop over to her Myspace page and check her out. I covertly recorded her set and may put a track or two up here, but not before I get permission from the lady herself.

The Depot at the Swansea Grand Theatre is a great little performance space; tiered seating around 3 sides, with a mirror and black curtain along the back side underneath an overhang that houses the PA. There is a gallery running above the seating which houses the lighting rig and operator, while the sound tech has a mobile desk and rack by one of the exits. 

We weren't able to use the PA without incurring extra charges for the host church so we took along a new HK audio system comprising of an active sub running two 10in tops on sticks. The tops themselves seem to put out a fair amount of noise on their own, but add the sub and it's a perfectly adequate system for an audience of around people.

Photo by Andy Crowder

When setting up the projector and screen I was presented with a problem. The throw of the projector wasn't short enough for the image to fill the screen without the screen being halfway downstage. Then I had a flashback to my days at college when we put on a concert and we had exactly the same problem, which was solved by one of our technicians by facing the projector backwards and having a mirror reflect the image back in the right direction, thereby essentially cutting the throw distance in half! This is exactly what I did with the wall of mirrors behind the stage and with a flip of the image so it was the right way round, we had a working screen! Maybe I should start packing a mirror in with the rest of the gear...

I may have mentioned that this was potentially the best venue that we would visit on the tour, but new information about the Ealing date has revealed that the The Depot is more akin to a secondary school rehearsal room when compared to the Ealing Christian Centres main auditorium and the amount of kit they've got! I'm very excited about this date now, but first I have to brave a week in the wilds of North Wales!

Now, where did I put that canoe...