Diary of a touring musician: day six
In September & October 2023, we took to the road in the UK to introduce our new album STARLITE.ONE. A homecoming, a cool hotel and a sold-out gig. This is part six of the warts-and-all-account.
If you happened upon this episode for the first time, we suggest you check out the others in the series by heading over to:
Day six
Ross-on-Wye: A special homecoming for Starlite
We couldn’t wait to leave the Old Court House Hotel where we laid our weary heads last night and take haven in our favourite place, the delightful Kings Head Hotel which would be our home for the night.
It is owned by James Vidler who has just started holding events at The Corn Exchange where we would be playing, which is literally behind the hotel.
We trundled our cases down the street and piled joyfully into the hotel to be met by wonderful smiley faces from all the staff.
As it was a bit too early to check in to our rooms we left our luggage behind reception and after asking for recommendations walked down the bottom of town to Broad Street to indulge in a magnificent breakfast at Victoria’s at 25 Broad Street which when Starlite lived there, used to be a local bakery
The place has a great atmosphere, everything is high quality and they are also dog-friendly which always cheers us up when we are away from our hairy beasts and need some vitamin-hound.
We loved it there and stayed a while chatting with an American mother and daughter who we happily shared our table with - especially because they had a cool doggo with them.
Taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi we dealt with the essential tour housekeeping. The new band t-shirts we had ordered were supposed to have been delivered at St. Albans ready for our first gig but they hadn’t arrived. After contacting our ace suppliers Razzamatazz - DHL informed them that they had ‘lost’ our t-shirts!!! WTF?? Lost t-shirts = lost revenue from sales before we had even started.
Also, the boarding cards, which we had planned to give to everyone at our gigs, hadn’t arrived at the Kings Head either! WTdoubleF was going on???
Changes
So much had changed in Ross-on-Wye since Starlite had lived there over thirty years ago. It was surreal walking up through town seeing how many shops had disappeared. Sadly, menswear outfitter and local legend Mervyn James had died and a rural property company had taken over his shop.
S.H.A.C.S. where Starlite’s mother Margaret ran the Flower and Vegetable Shop with the kind-hearted John Bengough had long been closed and replaced by a wine shop. The old post office was now a Wetherspoon’s and so on… there is a Star Burger joint but still no McDonald’s in town. Result!!
Fortunately, there are many traditional shops still open and found a cool haberdasher where we purchased some wide red ribbon to sew onto our flight suits to attach the battery pack receivers for our IEMs (in-ear monitors).
The Kings Head Hotel
The Kings Head is simply fabulous. It is dripping in history dating back to the 14th century when it used to be a coaching inn until the advent of railways in the 19th century.
The Kings Bar is our favourite to visit when we are in town and boasts a delicious selection of local bitters and IPAs, has real fires and embraces you with an authentic experience of British history - something we were very keen to share with Hugo. It was important for us that we showed him the UK through eyes that he wouldn’t experience on arena tours - grassroots venues and theatres have so much more to offer.
The Corn Exchange
The Corn Exchange is a relatively new venue and would be the first concert that Starlite has ever played in the town of Ross itself. We have performed at both Linton and Monmouth Music Festivals but this one was going to be that little bit more special. Her parents were buried just a few hundred yards away in St. Mary’s churchyard and tonight we would be celebrating life and love.
The get-in at the venue was straightforward as the large doors are actually at the side of the car park. The Corn Exchange does not have its own sound system suitable for bands (yet) so together with James, we agreed on booking Pukka PA Hire of Bristol to do our front-of-house sound.
It’s a large, reverberant room so the trick is you have to keep the sound level down. Louder sound - bigger problems.
Great dinner!
It was time for dinner which along with the rooms, was provided by the venue as part of our contract.
The food in the Kings Head restaurant is outstanding. We can’t tell you how much that means to us to be respected and given great quality food and drink. I’m sure it makes us play better!
The rooms in the hotel are fabulous too!! To be expected, the floor in our room dipped in the middle and it was a rather comedic moment when Starlite put a glass of water on the bedside table where it started moving like it was on an Ouija board and promptly slid off the table onto the carpet.
Starlite doesn’t like to eat before gigs and still had to sew the ribbon on the stage clothes so the kitchen set aside fish, chips and peas for after the gig. On her way up she bumped into her childhood friends Jill Williams (Garfield) and Lisa Simcox (Stanley) who had driven forty miles to support her. It was so good to see them but there was no time to stop.
Sold out
The venue started to fill up - our great supporter Ian Southall had arrived with a bunch of friends. We first met Ian when we played at Linton Festival a few years ago where he and his pals had watched our set, telling us afterwards that we were the best band of the festival - a lovely thing to say considering we were only halfway through the weekend!
Family & friends
We were also thrilled to see Starlite’s Aunty Pam sat in the audience next to her older brother Martin. Pam is a Rock ‘n’ Roll Aunty still kicking ass at 89 and is the younger sister of Margaret, Suzy’s Mum. It was even more poignant that Pam should be there as our new song ‘The Coat’ from STARLITE.ONE was written as a love song to Margaret who suffered from an aggressive form of early-onset dementia in her late ‘50s and passed away over 25 years ago.
Starlite’s ex-brother-in-law Nick Stephens (who taught her a few guitar chords including how to play ‘Here Comes The Sun’) rocked up with his wonderful partner Jane - the sister of Pete Overend Watts from Mott The Hoople, Nigel Gaudian who used to run Ross Records with a bunch of friends, Starlite’s nephew Kristian and his partner Beth and Starlite’s childhood best friend and mix-tape / vinyl enthusiast Julian Knight with his partner Mary.
Right at the end of the night, a lady introduced herself - her name was Christine Bengough - the eldest daughter of John Bengough who used to work with Starlite’s Mum at S.H.A.C.S - how fantastic! What a blast from the past!!
It’s all about the skin
Our first live gig playing together as a trio took off like a rocket - it felt great!! Then disaster struck. In the middle of the second song, Hugo’s kick drum skin split!! This had never happened to him before in the whole of his professional career and we had to improvise for around ten minutes while he replaced it.
Starlite jumped onto the Sequential Prophet 5 synthesiser and played the atmospheric solo ‘Everything’ and then Simon grabbed his acoustic guitar and walked into the audience and sang an extended acoustic version of ‘Blow Them All To Pieces’.
It’s such a powerful song and the audience loved it so we decided to keep it that way and play the song acoustically for the rest of the tour. Silver linings and all that. When these things happen you just have to forget it and move on. The rest of the gig went brilliantly and we thoroughly enjoyed playing!!
Because we were leaving our gear overnight in the secure venue it was a luxury to spend time talking to everyone after the concert as we didn’t have to pack up straight away. Another reason we need crew moving forward.
The sound
On stage, it’s very difficult to assess what the audience is hearing and impossible when wearing IEMs, so trusting your Front of House (FOH) sound guy is a must. The only thing we hear is the mix sent to us. In this respect, Stef did a great job and certainly was one of the best engineers we had throughout the tour. It’s tricky dealing with a band you have never heard before and unfamiliar with the vibe. From the audience reaction, it’s clear he really rocked the mix. Well done that man!
Fish & chips, IPA and bed
Starlite’s fish and chips arrived, we packed up all the gear and retired to the hotel for a few well-earned pints of IPA and chat before we hit the sack at 0300. A job well done!
Sadly we don’t have any other photos of the gig itself from the night which is very weird but sometimes that just happens. We can’t do everything.
Up next, a hearty breakfast, an adventure to Wales, a sold-out venue and a wonderful promoter.