Floodgates gig tonight

Tonite Floodgates play at someones 50th birthday party! Unsure who as the drummer Brad has organised this gig.
The bands fifth member Kim will be there doing the sound which is fantastic as I usually have to do it. Our little practise PA is really not up to it and it generally destroys the pleasure of the gig for me as I am constantly concerned about levels and sound quality etc.
Michelle plays bass and sings, Simon plays keyboards, guitar, bass and blues harp and I sing, play guitar, bass and drums and as I mentioned above Brad is the drummer.
We play a wide range of music including some originals so I think we can cater to a wide audience at any gig we do especially as we have three different voices which makes a huge difference in my mind. We have a common connection as we all surf and the band was formed primarily with personalities in mind rather than musical expertise. IE The drummer had never played the drums before! and Michelle learnt the bass in order to join the band! They have both done so well! Simon was already pretty experienced.
Mids was working yesterday and both Michelle and I went out following Roland's txt that there was a little left there.
Well, did I get a wave - Nuh! it was pretty fast and the shape was not fantastic and being on the new board did not help.

My new board is a conventional shape and works quite differently to the Nugget that I have been using for the past year.
The nugget requires you to put in the final big paddle actions as soon as the power of the wave hits the back of the board due to the volume in the tail.
The new board does not pick up the wave pressure until the power of the wave gets under the board to the area around the chest. So I am having to relearn the take off and that will take a little time. I have got on to a reasonable wave recently and gained some idea of how the board will perform and I am really looking forward to a day when the swell is a bigger, cleaner and a good shape so as I can really learn more about how to ride this new board.




Getting Aido to make the new board is part of a threefold strategy to improve my surfing.
The next stage is to sell the 10' Bic and get a custom built high performance 9' longboard either or a Surftech Epoxy, I am yet to decide.









Before Summer next year, both Michelle and I plan to get Laird Hamilton 12' Stand up paddle boards which should be available here in Australia by then. They are going to be such a lot of fun as if it is flat we can just go for a long paddle picking up the little swells as we go or we can use them to get on waves way before anyone else if there are wave hogs out there pissing us off. Ha Ha!




And Laird rides the bloody thing in a big wave - So we will have boards for all conditions then which will be fantastic!