Sometimes things go wrong… and sometimes after they have gone wrong, something else happens which could only have happened if the original difficulty had happened. Such it was on Friday night.
we had travelled from all over the country, and from Europe to, to Manchester, to see the Mavericks who are on their Mono Mundo tour to promote their new album, the eponymous Mono. We had booked into our hotels, and had dinner… I had shared a great meal at a Cuban restaurant with a lovely group of people and then we had wandered over to the Bridgwater Hall where the concert was sue to take place. We had excellent seats in the second row and we sat down to listen to the support band, Hidden Charms. They are four young lads from London who are supporting the mavericks over here; however, the sound was dreadful – the balance was wrong, it was muffled, the different instruments were indistinct and we began to worry about what the Mavs would sound like.
After the interval we returned to our seats and just when we were expecting the main act to come on, a woman came out and announced that the concert had been cancelled because there was no water! What??? What???!!! I had come all the way from Somerset, and others had travelled further, and the concert was cancelled?! Yes, indeed it was… I guess you can imagine how we felt…
We went out into the concourse and stood around; many people went home, but we stayed and the band, great guys, came out to see us, and patently chatted, had photos taken signed autographs, as fed up as we were… and then… and then a magic spell was cast.
Raul found a grand piano, threw back the cover and began to play, soon to be joined by Jerry Dale who is the key-board player in the band, Max Abrams the sax player and Paul Armstrong on trumpet…
We had an impromptu acoustic session… and it was magic, pure magic… Raul sang maybe half a dozen songs, and as I was standing right at the end of the piano I had a perfect view. others were taking photos and videos, holding up iPads, phones and cameras… I just stood and recorded it all in my memory. I don’t have any photos to share, I can’t show you a video, but it is something I will never forget!!
Lois Elsden 