Sunday 26 October 2008

Stonch's Descent into Hell

After our highly successful afternoon visit to the Big Lamp Brewery in Newburn, I overplayed my hand by taking my beer-expert son Stonch to the Maltings, home of the Jarrow Brewery.
I have to say in my own defence that all of my previous visits have been in the calm of midweek afternoons and early evenings, when I had a very favourable impression of the place.
But Saturday night was hell.
The place was packed with people drinking foreign lagers and there were very few real-ale drinkers at all in the place.
Two old guys, laden with sound equipment, were endlessly tuning-up and proving they could count over the microphone (they had the nerve to describe themselves as an "accoustic" band, by the way), every now and again giving forth a riffle of music ("this is what you're going to get, folks, can you possibly wait for it?").
When these ageing would-be pop stars finally got going (after a full HOUR of tuning-up), the amazing thing was that their sound balance was all to hell. They might as well have just walked in off the street, plugged themselves in and started without any preamble.
Anyway, they drove us out of the place

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry your visit was a wash out, but i s'pose its nice that the Maltings was full for a change. Drag Stonch to the Robin Hood next time.

papastonch said...

Well, you can't win 'em all.

Stonch said...

It wasn't so bad. First off, I was very impressed with the venue. The place is a real temple to beer, and genuinely opulent. Secondly, the stout was extremely good. I'd like to go on a weekday and tuck into the beers in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Rob Sterowski said...

I can't stand amplified live music in pubs, especially smaller, older pubs and especially acoustic music. How is it that two guys with guitars were loud enough to entertain a pub a hundred years ago, but now they need a 200W PA for the same pub?

papastonch said...

These two old "wannabees" couldn't entertain anyone at any time with any equipment. They were crap and nowt but a bloody nuisance!