Pick-up a pizza

The weather's been nice lately hasn't it? It wasn't last Friday though was it?

No it wasn't- which meant the journey to Pizza Express in Maidstone wasn't as enjoyable as it might have been, taking over 2 1/2 hours through wind, rain, speed restrictions and heavy 'the-school's-have-just-broken-up' traffic. When myself and the long-suffering Shirley finally arrived we found the lads already set-up and busily ordering pizza (inevitably!). Pete was off elsewhere so Chris (a.k.a. C.J.) joined Michael in the hat and glasses; he's played there several times with The F.B.I. Band. And what an excellent venue it is, with upcoming acts as diverse as Acoustic Alchemy, Chris Difford and that bloke with the floppy hair off of The X-Factor. After a quick soundcheck and the aforementioned food it was suddenly showtime- and my guitar suddenly sounded terrible, crackly and very quiet, nothing like it had earlier. I checked the leads- all ok. I couldn't work out what had happened, or what to do; in desperation I wiggled the pick-up selector switch and the sound abruptly returned, then went, then returned, then went- the treble pick-up wasn't working, but at least the bass one was. So I played the whole set on the bass pick-up which didn't seem to bother anybody apart from me, which is just as well if you think about it. (memo to self- take a spare guitar!!) That said it was a highly enjoyable show all round with the audience up for it from the start and Chris and Michael working excellently well together even if Michael did get Richard's name wrong in the band introductions... and I never realised how often I change pick-ups until I couldn't!