The Plenaries

This evening Mike and I went to listen to a band play at The Labyrinth in Valletta - a band called Smog that hasn't played in thirty-two years and has now been resurrected as the environmentally-friendly "Plenaries".

Reesa and Da Kween were singing back-up (yay!) and also the principal of Stagecoach, Edward Mercieca, plays bass and sings in the band. So between hearing about the gig at Stagecoach and then from Reesa, and lured by the promise of 70's music, we went :-)

Getting there was a bit of a hassle - it would have to be on the weekend when half of Malta descends on Valletta for the Karnival festivities! We parked in Floriana, since between the other cars, the carnival floats on the roads, and the policemen directing traffic away from Valletta, it didn't seem like we were going to find parking any closer. Then we had a bit of a detour... in the rain... because although we were at The Embassy (which is really close to Labyrinth) when it was time for the gig, I mistakenly thought that Labyrinth was at the top of Strait Street, but in fact that's Trabuxu, so then we walked all the way back down again while the heavens opened. Here's a tip, from me to you: the balconies over Strait Street have drainpipes that drip down right in the centre of the street. Urgh.

Finally we arrived, and it was all worth it!

The young people from our Stagecoach class showed up in Carnival costume, which was fun although they had to leave shortly after that to get the bus home. Some of the adult students came and stayed for the whole thing, plus our dance teacher! Speaking of which, Reesa outed my blog to her, so now I have to be careful what I write about the torture really beneficial exercises on Monday evenings... have I ever mentioned that our dance teacher is really, really cool, and the best ever?

The atmosphere down in the (cantina?) of the Labyrinth was great - it seemed like it was mostly a reunion of the people who would have gone to Smog's gigs back then, so there was a sense of "we're getting together to have fun", although there were also plenty of young(er) people there too. More and more people kept on arriving, and it was veritably packed by the end of the evening.

The room is long and narrow, and there was barely enough room for the band on stage - on several occasions, Edward's guitar head whizzed through the air dangerously close to Da Kween's head, but no injuries were reported! I wore my high-heeled boots on purpose, to help with seeing in the crowd, but unfortunately five feet two inches plus one and a half inches is still relatively short. But then our dance teacher had the brilliant idea of kneeling on one of the bar stools, and I did the same - how cool, I had a great view! An hour and a half of that just about killed my knees (they still ache) but it was worth it. Otherwise I would have missed the bit where Reesa and Da Kween whipped out some cottonwool and plugged their ears to save their eardrums from Edward's powerful voice!

The band was very cool, and did extremely well for not having played together in thirty-two years, especially since, erm, they apparently only had one actual rehearsal for last night!

There were a few places where the beat got a little lost, but only a few *grin* and overall it was great. I personally think that it is better to have a good atmosphere coming from the stage than to have technical perfection in the music. The guitar solos (both lead and bass) were funky, the drummer laid down some great rhythms, the strumming was good, and the singing (both from the guys and from the ladies) was souuuuuulful.

I'm more of a 60's girl myself, but I really enjoyed the music. I had never even heard a couple of the songs before, but some were old favourites that you just can't help but sing along to! For she's a hooOOOOOooooOOOOOooonky-tonk woMAN!

Click on the picture above to see a short video clip taken during the gig singing "Mony Mony" - feel free to download (1:31min, .asf file, 4.8Mb). The sound doesn't do the band justice at all, and you can see how much fun it was from the crowd's reaction at the end. Sorry for the shaking, but how could I not be waving my hand in the air for the "yeah"s?

The Plenaries: Paul Sultana on guitar, Remo Mifsud on guitar and vocals, Stefan Frendo on drums, and Edward Mercieca on bass and vocals.

Edward's introductions to the songs were hilarious... e.g. "if you're here tonight, you must have heard it through the grapevine *groan*. For one of the songs, he said something like "This next song needs no introduction - if you're about our age, you definitely know it. Anyone at that time who walked into a music shop to buy a guitar would have played it..." and then here comes the opening riff for "Smoke on the Water"! Heh, us young 'uns know that one too... of all the guitar-playing people that I know of, my age and younger down to the age of 13, we all started out on that immortal riff. Aaaaah!

Another fun part of the evening was that I also got to meet Toni Sant for the first time! I recognised him from his Blogger profile and went over to say hello afterwards. It's a sign of our times, that we first get to know people online, and then recognise them 'in real life' from their blog profiles or Flickr photosets. Although to be fair, I probably wouldn't have recognised Toni if I hadn't already known that he would be there! Anyway it was lovely talking to him, he's got some really interesting stories to tell.

I haven't had this much fun in a while, and prosit to the band and their lovely backing vocalists :-)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to rub some Lasonil onto my knees.

Comments

[Non Existent]

I like your blog, its quite interesting and i really like the way you write. Keep it up.

Regards,
Non Existent

[Reesa]

The video clip is so cooooooool! And sorry for outing your blog to Emma (erm, and I had also outed it to Edward - a thousand apologies!) - it was done with the best intentions, promise!!! Anyhow, you always say nice things about Stagecoach hehehe!

[Da Kween]

MY WORD MALTAGIRL. YOU ROCK !!!!!!! glad you enjoyed. we had a blast too! as you can see from the ... errrmmm ... headbanging in the vid !!! *reaches for the painkillers* GROAN!

[Coemgen]

Ufffffff. Kemm xtaqt ġejt...imma ma stajtx. Kont diġa ktibt qerda sħiħa fuq il-blogg ta Coryse pero x'ħin rajt il-clip erġajt dendilt ix-xoffa. Kemm ma nħobbx hekk jien!

[Toni Sant]

I'm glad we've finally met. It was quite a fitting occassion too!

[MaltaGirl]

Thanks, Non Existant!

Reesa, not Edward as well! Aaggrrrrhhhh! Although, hmmm, do you think he'll give me something for all the free advertising? Heheheh...

*hands Da Kween a kaxxa Panadols*

Coemgen, forsi darb' ohra :-)

And Toni, the pleasure was mine, we really enjoyed your company!

[hsejjes]

I was thinking about that gig all of Saturday night whilst I was entertaining 2 'friends' over from England. Believe me, I would have loved to get away from the inane blabber that I had to endure...and I missed seeing Toni Sant....BOO HOO!!!

....And I would have loved to see you too Maltagirl...*boo hoo!!!* *rolls on floor tearing her hair out and making a fuss*

[Maltagirl]

*pats Hsejjes on the shoulder*

Don't worry, I'm sure there will be other gigs... (didn't you hate it when your parents would say something like that after denying you permission to go somewhere?)