{"id":955,"date":"2009-10-06T17:43:11","date_gmt":"2009-10-06T16:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2009\/10\/06\/theres-a-real-buzz-about-this-concert\/"},"modified":"2009-10-06T17:43:11","modified_gmt":"2009-10-06T16:43:11","slug":"theres-a-real-buzz-about-this-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2009\/10\/06\/theres-a-real-buzz-about-this-concert\/","title":{"rendered":"There&#8217;s a real buzz about this concert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The leafy villiage of Altrincham is one of the posher corners of Manchester, with many a footballer and cricketer tucked away in meticulously restored mansions behind tall brick walls.<\/p>\n<p>However, the air was a little less rarified on Saturday, as Altrincham was hit with a miniature plague.<\/p>\n<p>As my hosts and I were eating breakfast Saturday morning, we couldn\u2019t help noticing that the house was rapidly being taken over by flies. \u201cWhat\u2019s drawing them in?\u201d we wondered. As the new arrival, I couldn\u2019t help checking my shoes and pits. \u201cIs there something dead in the house?\u201d they wondered. These are not really the sorts of chats that make for a relaxing pre-concert breakfast.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, Adrian went looking for bug spray- he found no spray, but did get an explanation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the farmers- they\u2019ve been smearing manure in the fields. You\u2019ll not find a can of bug spray in all Manchester,\u201d the shop assistant reported in a thick Northern accent. \u201cYou\u2019ll have to wait for a\u00a0 freeze for them to move on.\u201d\u00a0 My host did manage to pick up something that looked like an electric racketball racket- and as we left for rehearsals it looked like a murderous game of R-ball was being played in the kitchen.<\/p>\n<p>Sure enough, the plague had reached our concert venue just in time for rehearsal. There\u2019s nothing like trying to sort out a difficult program with limited rehearsal time when you\u2019re being swarmed by little black monsters. Fortunately, fate smiled. Someone in the band knew someone who had a can of bug spray left over from the last great plague. Normally, I wouldn\u2019t celebrate the mass discharge of airborne poison, but I was pretty delighted to see it on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, every concert has a story, a bit of drama. This one had a plague. It was refreshingly Biblical, a nice change from oboists with tendonitis,\u00a0soloists with memory slips, broken lighting,\u00a0 over-eager heating systems\u00a0or traffic jams. As plagues go it was more irritating than terrifying. At least it wasn\u2019t frogs.<\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2009\/10\/06\/theres-a-real-buzz-about-this-concert\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The leafy villiage of Altrincham is one of the posher corners of Manchester, with many a footballer and cricketer tucked away in meticulously restored mansions behind tall brick walls. However, the air was a little less rarified on Saturday, as Altrincham was hit with a miniature plague. As my hosts and I were eating breakfast [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-opion-life-as-a-performing-musician"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}