Freefall: the star

Saturday night's gig was at a pub called The Star, in a village called Wotton-Under-Edge. My brother, our usual bassist, is away on holiday, visiting his wife's family in Indonesia, so Sophie stood in for him on bass.

Likewise, our regular drummer Bean was otherwise engaged, so we had Leah on drums again. Although as Leah covered close to half our gigs for Bean last year, I think it's fair to say she's less of a sub, and more our "other drummer". We certainly think of her as part of the band these days.

The Star has been a pub since 1572. It was apparently the inspiration behind the name of the White Star shipping line, of Titanic fame. The founder of the latter, which was, apparently, originally a Canadian timber company called White Star before the profits of that company were used to found the White Star Line, was the son of the pub's landlord, and named his fledgling timber company after his father's pub. 

According to the pub's website, at least. 

It was a busy night. Like most old buildings, the Star feels split into lots of small spaces, rather than one voluminous room with a bar at the end, which would be far more practical for a venue. So the crowd was very up close and personal, with me literally singing into their faces, and them, occasionally, falling over the foldback and inadvertently joining us on what passed for the stage.

My favourite kind of gig, if I'm honest. Hopefully, we'll be back there again later this year.