Strawbs Xmas party NPL 2007 Part 2

NPL brought loads more friendly faces and had the chance to re-acquaint with some we had not seen for months in the hours or so before Benedictus took to the stage. Now I have to admit I had been given a sneak preview of their set list when I went to their warm up show in the week before, but for many this would have been the first time they had heard them. One could imagine a few nerves may have been jangling on the stage playing for the first time in front of a house full of long standing fans, let alone the band.

Needless to say they didn't let themselves down and in a set of 30 minutes or so covered a number of Strawbs classics that were received with loud applause and satisfied smiles on stage. At least that was how it seemed as they peered from under their menacing "Western " masks.

A quick change on stage led to the Acoustics taking over for a set shortened to fit the needs of the night, including the sumptuous buffet provided to satisfy the hunger pangs of the gathered throng, who were already well into the party spirit and beer and wine and cider, not to mention a little drop of water to help the night along.

When we found out that the theme of the party was to be Heroes and Heroines, Calli and I wanted to try to decorate the NPL with a comic book theme. Wanted something that was not only comic bookish, but also Strawb-themed, Christmassy and also something that would be OK to for the NPL to hang on to if they wanted.

Had this vision of an Isaac Mendez style view of New York, or Gotham City at night, with a Batman style image being projected up onto the night sky, with the Batman image being made up of the letters STRAWBS, and the buildings illuminated with Xmas net-lights. (If you've never heard of the artist Isaac Mendez, don't worry - he's a fictional character from the first series of "Heroes".) Decided that the most obvious skyline view that we could use was the cover of the new album, Calderone.

Calli did a fantastic job downloading fonts and making up posters of Batman-like sound effects, "Pow", "Zap", etc. and making up a cartoon-like banner that read "Meanwhile Back at the NPL", but my skills as an artist let me down.

The black lining material that we hung round the room was good in that you could see the Xmas lights through it, (otherwise we'd have had to have cut hundreds of little holes in it and poke each light through individually), but it was not designed to be painted on. It was like painting on blotting paper, the paint just kept being absorbed and disappearing into the material. The resultant mess didn't look anything like the Calderone cover. It might not even have looked anything like a city-scape at night.

Was quite pleased with my Batman / Strawb logo, which we projected up on to a very naff looking cloud. Trouble was, I hadn't thought that through properly either. The projection was completely washed out by any flash photography, and all the photos I took without flash were completely blurred, so in my photos all you can see is the naff cloud. Hopefully a better photographer than me may have captured it.

Apologies to everyone that the reality didn't end up like the original vision. Ah well, bang goes my ambition to be the next Roger Dean!

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DC introduces the first set - Benedictus - Strawbs tribute band