Oh wait -- did you say balloons?

No better in large. SOOC except for noise reduction and a slight crop!

This is what it is. That is, empty seats at the Espace Cathare in Quillan (they were filled up later). It's an old railway shed and wholly unsuitable for its current use as a concert hall. Large and cavernous, the acoustic is dead, and the sound seems to go nowhere. A vast empty space separates the stage from the tiered seats, so there's no feeling of communication with the audience.

It was an uncomfortable experience. Fluffed entries, bum notes, right notes but at the wrong time ... it wasn't catastrophic, but it wasn't a dazzling success either.The finishing touch was appropriate. We sang Gloria ad Modum Tubae as an encore; it's a canon, and the sopranos kicked it off two bars early, so the rest of us had to leap on board the moving bus or face disaster. Our director William is a patient man (luckily), but if looks could kill, they wouldn't have survived to tell the tale. We were all thoroughly glad to get off the stage. We have a chance to redeem ourselves on Sunday ...

A more aesthetic but less relevant spare blip: leaf.