29th March 2008 Double Salsa Feature Pa'Ti @Dancers-Preston

A most unexpected message struck me out from long-time salsa colleague Lubi Jovanovich in late January (Facebook is a kinda handy that way). As part of doing the rounds promoting his 2008 edition of Beginner's Guide To Salsa, Lubi was launching it on the 29th of March at an event organised by Dancers-Preston. Dancers-Preston comprise of Nick and Carol Atack with associated instructors who run regular ballroom, international Latin, and salsa lessons at the Preston Grasshoppers rugby ground and whom, according to Lubi, made it a habit of promoting live bands at their events - Casa Latina Allstars, Merengada, Charanga del Norte, Sexteto Cafe...

To quote Lubi, "he (Nick) has heard about you on the grapevine and the reports are all good." [Butter me up baby, and I'm all yours!] Not long after, the gig was set: a double bill featuring 4de12 and Lubi.

Being booked so far in advance, Dan and I were afforded the luxury of popping across the Pennines to scout out the venue a few weeks before - we had been getting conflicting information about venue size and wanted it resolved to reassure the PA guys. I took the chance to meet Carol and Nick in the flesh, have a chat, get a feel of the lessons and gauge the prospective audience. A sneaky little dance may have been involved. Dan was taking photos (of the venue).

4 de Diciembre all rocked up to Preston Grasshoppers on a drizzly Saturday afternoon, complete with soon-to-be-debutants Ferret on hand percussion and Thom on trumpet. I think Thom phrased it best when he said that he'd never been to a single gig where everything ran smoothly; this was in response to a situation we found ourselves in which I can only describe kindly as a "miscommunication" with the management of the venue itself. The whole band and our PA company, Blast PA, were left kicking our heels for a few hours in the dressing room, unable to set up on the empty stage next door, until 6pm. Doors were to open at 7:30pm.

Dan (left) and Whib (right) having a positively good time.
Photograph courtesy of Nigel Skinner, Copyright©2008. All rights reserved

Preferring to dwell on the positives instead, I can say that I learned a lot from the gig:

• Blast PA did an exemplary job - setting up everything, soundchecking us, and delivering tremendous quality both in the monitoring and front of house. Most of us are veterans of the live music scene, and we were throughly impressed at the speed and quailty of Blast's performance, and their very accommodating attitude.
• The interval between the two sets was too long - nearly an hour. Given our enforced spectatorship of male mud-wrestling in the afternoon, it made for the feel of a long-drawn-out day. No more than 30 minutes would be ideal.
• Our stage layout was almost ideal - good feedback rejection, interaction between all members, and visibility from front of house. This would form the basis of our technical specification documents.
• We would adopt a different approach to how we balanced our setlists with our encores, as audiences don't tend to call for the latter.
• The changes we'd made to the way we played our music paid dividends in performance terms - more variety and texture across our sets.
• Both Ferret and Thom are solid enhancements to the band's musicianship and entertaining ability.
• The quailty of our monitoring had the greatest impact on how we played - everything was comfortable, and we felt able to express ourselves freely on stage.

The audience were promptly onto the floor from the very first number; quite unusual as things go (there's normally a period of milling uncertainty leading to a tentative foray of the brave); proof positive that Nick takes considerable effort in promoting live music. We did have a sneaky ace up our sleeve; Ferret's parents had come up from Bristol to witness his debut on our front-line, and were staying with relations (also in attendance) not five minutes down the road.

During "El Gallo": Loo and Nathan rubberneck at the might of
the brass solos. Red Ferret is unmoved. Photograph courtesy of
Shanti T, Copyright©2008. All rights reserved

And irony of ironies, I spied a long-time friend in the audience with whom I'd lost contact with for more than ten years. Shortly after the first set, I bounded across to him to say 'hello' - he didn't recognise me at first... I guess that I was the last person he expected to see on stage. Richard Bettess knew me pre-salsa and has the dubious distinction of being responsible for introducing me to dancing in the first place: he dragged me kicking and screaming to my first ballroom class at uni. The rest, as they say, is history.

Cuatro de Diciembre double-featured with Superstar DJ
Lubi Jovanovich (left). Photograph courtesy of Shanti T (right).
Copyright©2008 Shanti T. All rights reserved

The response from the audience and the organisers spoke volumes about our performance. The floor was packed for every number, and Nick at the end of the night was happily saying that he was looking forward to having us back again. To mix my metaphors, the proof of the pudding will be in the test of time. And hiring salsa bands, no matter how good they are (and we are... good, that is), still pose a considerable capital risk to any promoter.

I would be lying if I said that there wasn't room for improvement, because that's the kind of ensemble we are. But I would still regard our first event with Dancers-Preston as an unqualified success. Maybe they and their clients would be the right persons to ask?

Loo Yeo