New Years Eve with the Campers Club at Seacroft East Runton

Jacqui and I drove over mid afternoon to spend some time with Dan and Michele. I carried on to the club at 5:45ish and got the pass fob to open the barriers from Graham the manager. Soon got the gear in and looked out the window to see Nigel had arrived so I let him in, and Dave a few minutes later. The smallish stage in a corner is a bit of a challenge to set up the Bose but we eventually got going with Dave well forward, the Bose just behind him and Nige slightly hidden by the Xmas tree. No problems setting up but the room suddenly filled up at 7:45pm, so no opportunity for a sound check. I put my music on and then Jen and Laura arrived. We changed into the red and black and had just got going with set 1 when Jacqui arrived with Dan and Michele in tow. (Harriet was having a teenage party and Dan and Michele had been asked to go out for a while). I thought it would be a good night when the audience answered back "uuh huh" to Dave singing "Good Luck Charm". As the audience were enjoying a slap up feed, we picked and mixed through set 1 to play a more sedate repertoire and consciously leaving the Shadows Walk out altogether. We popped in the odd special request e.g. “Beautiful Body, Cheating Heart, Raining in my Heart” to keep the volume down but we opened up a bit as we got into the last 20 minutes of the set. We were going down quite well with a crowd determined to enjoy themselves and as the food was eaten they began to respond warmly to things like the “How Long” the Beatles, Seasons of Gold and the Hollies. We got the chairman and a couple of his guests up to play tambourines in “Mr Tambourine Man” and generally engaged well with the banter. Only problem for me was the lack of room between the people on my left and my guitar footpedal – I was being gently pushed back and the logistics of changing guitar settings was getting tricky – still its them that are paying! After an hour we stopped to let Grenville (The Chairman of the Camping Club) deliver his speech and then we took a break. My MP3 batteries had failed, so Nige put his music on and we both resolved to sort out better interval music progammes in the NEw Year. We resumed for Set 2 playing it fairly standard up to The Eagles and getting lots of dancing, then we did “White Xmas for the last time this year. The audience sang along really well and were well in the spirit of things. It was at this point we brought Grenville and his mates up to do the Shadows walk. It went down a bomb! Then we did the bad hand routine to bring Dan up to play “Rock Around the Clock” The old boy got a good round of applause! We carried on with the set including a well received appearance from Elvis to finish with, of all things, Shang-a-Lang which really got them bopping. Took a break and then resumed at 11:30 pm in the white for the final set. By the time we got to “Unchained” we only had a few minutes to midnight, so Nige did “Hippy Hippy Shakes”. I got the key wrong to start but picked it up as we went. Then it was time and we ushered in the New Year with “Old Lang Syne” (in C might have been a bit high for this crowd), “Okey Cokey, Knees Up Mother Brown and the Conga” Finally got to give Jacqui a New Years hug and then we played onto 12:30am with a mix of stuff e.g. Midnight Hour Shakin All Over, Saw Her Standing There. We got a fine response as we wrapped up with “Wonderful Tonight” and encored with “Great Balls” and “Johnny B Goode” A great night audiencewise. And apart from a few cock ups (mainly on my part) I thought we played pretty good. The management were well pleased. Then it was quick pack, load and off for Jacqui and myself because we were flying out to Thailand on New Years Day. We left Nige and Dave sipping coffee with Graham and drove back via Norwich getting in just after 3 am.

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL YOU BLOGETTES AND BLOGATEERS

Boxing Day Show at Mundlesey Manor

We agreed to meet at the gig at 6:15pm and I allowed and hour and 45 mins for the journey. It was chilly as I set off but I was pleased that the sniffly cold I had been fighting was in retreat. The roads were very quiet and apart from an accident on the Norwich ring road I was hardly held up. So I rolled up at the Manor bang on time to see Dave’s van parked up and Nigel getting his last few bits in. The Manor is a big rambling hotel probably dating from Victorian times? I parked behind Dave and got my stuff into the foyer then we shifted our vehicles into the car park proper. As we moved the gear into the dining / concert room I realised that Dave had had a cold over Xmas giving him a decidedly nasal vocal quality. It is a fair sized room (by hotel standards) with room for several dining tables and a medium sized dance floor. The carpeted stage meant there was hardly any boxy echo but, thinking we had the potential to be a bit loud, we set up with the Bose well back and Dave well forward. There was a funny smell in the stage area, but I put it down to Dave’s bad stomach! However, all the gear worked well and, as there was no one there, we did a bit of “Just One Look “ as a sound check. “Much too loud” reported Nigel who had wandered out front. So we dropped the Bose master volumes a notch and Dave switched to brushes and we tried again. It was still a bit loud, but we figured with a few people in we would be OK. And so it was. As it was a bit of a hotel function do, we got changed into white shirts, black ties and black waistcoats – looking quite smart (but easily confused for restaurant waiters). When we came out to play there were only 3 or 4 people sat ready for the show; but the management had specifically asked for an 8pm start, so we got on stage and opened up with a very quiet “Foot Tapper” with Dave playing brushes instead of sticks. There were still only a few people sat there as we ended it so I took the boys into a quiet jazzy 12 bar to limber up. Quiet but played at a fair pace, we certainly got Nigel’s fingers busy in the bass solo! Following on Nige took the opportunity to take us through a quiet “Beautiful Body” and Dave turned out a couple of Jim Reeves waltz’s. During this quiet spell the audience started to arrive and we had about 20 in. We opened up a bit of banter with the audience and they were very responsive, even asking for 60’s stuff we knew (e.g. Needles and Pins), so we promised their requests would get played and got on with the normal set 1 with Dave back on sticks. We ran through nicely from “Just one Look” to “The Young Ones” doing some good bantering and getting a bit louder along the way. I had been distracted by how loud I was having to set the guitar on the Bose until I realised that the volume pedal on the Roland GT-10 was half way back, but that was quickly fixed. The audience had grown to about 30 at this point, mainly sat in rows (theatre style) facing the band across the dance floor. We slipped in a better paced “Rockin Around the Xmas Tree” and then “Three Times a Lady”. The ‘crowd” were still very responsive, so we did a good bit of audience involvement with the Shadows walk getting 2 chaps and a lady up to play the rubber guitars – this time I got the guitar sound right on the GT-10 and as I went out front I could hear that the band sounded pretty good; the whole thing going down really well! After a well appreciated “Seasons of Gold”, we followed up with a ‘bum clutcher’ (“Only You”) and got several couples up and dancing. Bottom grabbing sloweys had turned out to be the staple repertoire for getting this audience dancing. Then, as I switched guitar, Dave and Nige assembled a tambourine troupe to assist us on “Mr Tambourine Man”. We followed this with the Hollies medley and that got a great response as did the following ‘Mop Top’ Beatles sequence. After “Rock Around the Clock” I could see we had been playing for about 90 minutes so we brought the set to a close with “I Believe”. We retreated to the bar to top up on water and lime and then got changed into the red shirts. These looked very smart with the black ties and waistcoats and we were well received as we came back to play set 2. We opened with the usual sequence of the Searchers, Eagles and Beach Boys then threw in a slowey with “Raining in My Heart” and followed up with a great audience sing-a-along with “White Xmas”. Somewhere along the way we also did "Shine" and a couple of instrumentals with “Walk Don’t Wipe Out” and Flingel Bunt” - I stepped out front to do the Shadows walk again. We did a good banter sequence to introduce “Alice”; getting the logic right that Nige announces it and it is only as he explains the answer back expletive with an “Ffff” that Dave interjects with “You can’t do that here Nige!”. Anyway it all went down very well as did the Elvis routine a bit further on. After “Sweet Caroline” we wound up with “Love is All Around” and we got a great reception with some shouts for ‘more’ (it was getting late and it may have been that some thought we were finishing for the night). We had a short break and came back on for the final set opening up with “500 Miles” and running through to “Hi Ho” getting a great reception from our small but enthusiastic audience. We carried on with “Unchained” and “American Trilogy” and then a rare performance of “Dance the Night Away”. We were just thinking what to do next when someone shouted out for the Kinks and we impressively swang straight into “You Really Got Me”! By then it was fast approaching midnight so we continued into the ending sequence with “Pretty Woman” and a special request for “Wonderful Tonight”. We got a great reception for that so we encored with “Great Balls” to finish about 5 past midnight. A surprisingly good night considering the small audience! As we packed up the bad smell returned and the boys told me the stage was built over a sewer that occasionally leaked bad odours; but looking at Dave clutching his belly I think they were having me on! It was as we were packing up that Dave noticed he had used his Shure Sm58A mic rather than the Audix - which he had left lying at the front of his kit!! Got loaded up and Dave had some good feedback from the guvnor who was most impressed with the bands versatility and ability to hold the attention of a small audience. It was about 1 am as I set off in sub-zero temperatures. The roads were icy but quiet and I made steady progress home getting in about 2:45am but feeling surprisingly good!

Lowestoft Railway and Bowls – Waveney Norse Council Xmas party

Was it my imagination or was the weather getting warmer? It was certainly dark and drizzly as I drove over, but not actually freezing as it had been for the last month! I made steady progress arriving at 6:30pm after an hour and a quarter. Being there first I was able to pick my parking slot and soon got the gear in. I was just setting up the mains leads when in came Dave and Jen, followed closely by Mick (the “committee man” translates to concert secretary in these parts) who arranged for the dance floor to be cleared of the tables and chairs left there from the previous event. As I resumed set up, in came Nigel perversely wearing his fleece in the increasingly mild temperature. Mind you he did take it off after a band chorus of “You won’t feel the Benefit” (reminds me of a UB40 song). After a while everything was set up OK but, as we switched on, we ran immediately into feedback problems. This was mainly due to the setting changes I had made at the previous gig to push more of Dave and Nige’s vocals through my Bose. So I reset the cross feed volumes back to 12 o’clock, but it was still feeding back a bit and it was only when I spotted that the master volume on the Rolls mixer was also up at 1 o’clock that I could get rid of it. Basically, I could do with 15 minutes balancing the reverb and Rolls mixer settings in a hall one day! The place was filling up nicely so we omitted a sound check and Mick got the disco underway at a respectable volume, until Dave asked him to turn up one of his favourite tunes! Nige and I took refuge in the quiet bar. When Dave joined us he suggested that with only 2 sets to do and some serious drinking already underway, why not start with Set 2? We agreed to do this and dip back into set 1 if we needed it. As we returned to the concert room I took advantage of Mick’s absence to turn the volume down a tad on the disco and we went to get changed in the foyer leading to the indoor bowling green. With all the dressing room banter going on we lost track of time and were 10 minutes late on stage! We finally got going and opened up with the Searchers. It was very loud and quite dark on stage but the large audience seemed to be OK with it and we got a good round of applause as we kept the beat going and announced “Do It Again”. We played pretty much by the Set 2 book after that with the notable exceptions of “Rockin Around the Xmas Tree” (much too fast again) and “Shine” which got a good reaction. The audience seemed to like the band banter and they did a bit of dancing to the faster numbers, but they really came up in force for the first slowey: “Halfway to Waveney Norse Council”. Dave led us straight into the intro and after that, Dave and Nige kept the beat going while I did the announcement. That worked very well (we should do more of that in my opinion). However, we soon got thrown out of our stride by doing “Sweet Caroline” to precede the announcement for the “buffet is ready” and then trying to do the Elvis routine while the audience’s attention was diverted by food. Anyway, Dave hammed it up very well and it went down well with those watching. It was a hard audience to read. There was a vocal minority asking for fast numbers and then not dancing, whilst the silent majority really wanted slow dances so they could do office party bum clutching (or bottom grabbing as they say in posh places). We played a mix of material to the close of the set, including a good Shadows walk with correct guitar settings and a chorus line of parking attendants and then “White Xmas”; which I wrongly started in the key of D in the dark and so we had to continue in D! But they all sang along anyway. At 10:10pm Mick pointed out we were running over time so we bravely finished with “I Believe”. My fault for misreading the clock! Then we had a long break for awards and speeches. In the break Nige and I took the Bose volumes down a notch because we both felt it was too loud on stage. Before resuming with our normal set 3 show, Dave had organised us to do a request for “Peaceful Easy Feelin”. Nige took the lead, Dave the first harmony and with me on top it went down very well with the crowd. So well that the chap who requested it came up to sing karaoke on the house mic doing “Lying Eyes” with us! After that, up comes another fellow who wanted to do an Elvis number. He didn’t know any of our Elvis repertoire so we did one he knew: “His Latest Flame”. Nige and Dave did a great job considering they hadn’t played it at all before (I had played it a few times in Revival 18 years ago!). Of course the crowd loved all this and when we opened up Set 3 proper with “500 Miles” they were very raucously singing, dancing, clapping and stamping along. As we opened up with “Amarillo” a lot of people came up to dance the party dance sequence all the way through to “All Right Now”. But they looked a bit hot and bothered after that so we did “Unchained” and filled the floor again – this time with bum clutchers. So much so that we reprised “White Xmas” (this time in C) as another slowey that they could croon and dance along with Bob, Bing and Perry (Dave, Mog and Nige) and they did just that! By this point we were into closing time, so we did a spirited finish with “Merry Xmas Everybody”, and that went down so well that Mick asked us to do another. We chose to encore with “Pretty Woman”. Dave tried to sign off at the end but the remaining audience were a bit worse for drink so they were not sure what they were clapping for I think! All in all it was a good night for the band and several people came up to say how much they had enjoyed it. We got packed and loaded up quickly and were on the road by 12:50 am. Apart from slowing to avoid police attending a crash on the road near Beccles, I had a quiet run home under clear skies with no moon. It meant that the stars were very bright and town lights were visible for miles as an eerie glow on the horizon. Also the temperature had continued to rise in a light South West wind - it was over 10 degrees as I rolled into the drive just before 2am feeling strangely awake.

Norwich WMC

It was a very wet, windy and dark day. I set off at 5:45pm and there were a few large puddles to negotiate as I drove up past Thetford to pick up the A11 to Norwich. The traffic news wasn’t good: a tree had fallen across the road where the A11 meets the A140 in Norwich. Visibility was very poor as I drove on and the traffic news suggested diverting, so I took the A47 and went one junction North so I could enter Norwich on the Watton Road. Well by the time I got to the inner ring road the rain and wind was even worse and I wasn’t able to recognise quite where I was. The outcome being that I missed the turn to St Benedicts St and carried on right round the inner ring road to the railway station on the other side of town. So I carried on to complete a circuit of the city and eventually I found my way back and did my usual thing of making the illegal turn at Charing Cross to park on the curb near St Gregory’s Alley. No sign of the others, so I started making several journeys up the alley to get the gear into the club foyer. Odd I thought; I keep bringing the gear in and it seems like its not piling up in the foyer? It was Nigel! He was already loaded in and parked and he had seen my stuff arrive and was carting it up the stairs. We were both doing this in staggered stages so we never actually met until the end! I couldn’t find any on street parking, so ended up in a car park off Pottergate costing £1.60. By the time I got back to the club Dave and Jen were loaded in and Dave took off to look for parking. Got in the club and started to set up. Nige and I agreed to come forward with the Boses and push Dave right to the front to get good sound projection from another boxy stage.

I also set the reverb mixer to give a bit more of Dave and Nige’s vocal into my Bose. For those blogateers who are interested in things technical. Here is a picture of the reverb rack with Axon Guitar Synth on top, Rolls line mixer in mid and Lexicon MPX1 at the bottom.

The thick cable at the top leads to a stage box that Nige and I plug our Bose send and analogue returns into.

And here is my Bose set up - the T1 digital mixer shown in close up on the right.


We soon got things working and I remembered to save the existing Bose T1 Scene (where Dave’s vocal replaces the Bass Drum) as Foot Tappers Practice before reloading with Foot Tappers Live for the show. Once we got it working I thought the on stage guitar sound was a bit bassy so I reduced bass boost EQ and took a bit of treble off the mic EQ to close down a toppy ring from the mic. Dave did a bit of meeting and greeting while Nige and I finalised set up. You can just see Dave's kit amongst all the Xmas trimmings.

The bar man had been having problems with his (beer) gas, but that was conveniently fixed in time for us to have a lager before we got changed - into the red shirts with Xmas ties (courtesy of Kleenezy). We were a few minutes late starting off but soon got into our stride with the usual beginning. The on stage sound was OK if a little loud. But it looked like it sounded fine out front of house. The audience could hear the banter ‘cos we got some good response to our opening remarks about how Dave had organised some “Christmas Crackers” as we pointed out the lovely ladies dancing along to the band! We did an early “Rockin Around the Xmas Tree” which went well even if it was a tad fast for me. While we were at it Dave did “Winter Wonderland as a request for the blonde twins. We got a bit lost but all arrived at the end together. Carrying on with the show, we got the twins up to do the Shadow’s walk with the blow up guitars. Only problem was (yet again) I made the mistake of setting the guitar to 12 string rather than Shadows sound, so had this uninspiring bassy guitar sound to work with. Still it all went down very well. Changing to 12 string we went straight into the Hollies which I thought we played well and it got a good ,warm round of applause. Changing back to 6 string we did the “Mop Tops” which also went well. After “Rock Around the Clock” we were running out of time so we finished with “I Believe” which filled the dance floor and got a great response. Then it was off for a long break for Bingo. During the break I met a Scotsman at the bar singing I Believe". He loved the band and insisted on buying the round of water and lime I was getting in - what a good chap! Changing into the white we opened up Set 2 with the Searchers. After the Eagles and Beach Boys we did a stirring rendition of “White Xmas” which went down a bomb with this audience. Then we followed the usual sequence through “Alice”, “Moon of Love etc”, “Halfway to Paradise”, “Wonder of You” (Elvis made a much appreciated appearance and even hit the difficult high line at the climatic end of the song), Sweet Caroline” the Bay Cities and finishing off with “Love is all Around”. We took a shortish break before returning to do a 35 minute Set 3; playing the party dance sequence through to “All Right Now” (which got an unexpected great response) We only had a few minutes to go so we wrapped up with “Merry Xmas Everybody” complete with Nige in Noddy Holder hat. I thought we played and sang it pretty good and it got a great response with lots of shouts for more, so we encored with “Unchained” to another great response. As we came off we got a lot of complimentary remarks on the show and there was even talk of us coming in to do Xmas Eve. We politely declined, but Phil (The concert sec) was pressing Dave to agree to Xmas Eve 2009 as we packed up. The rain had almost stopped as we brought the cars round for load up. Rather than risk delay with the fallen tree, I made my way back the way I came in and then had a quiet run home getting in about 2 am.

Practice at Skeyton

A very cold day. I made good progress to the hall and negotiated the sodden field to the door arriving bang on 4:30pm. Dave was just setting up. He had had a bit of a nightmare collecting the key, so he had only just got the heating on. I kept my fleece and scarf on as I set up; the heating didn’t lift the cold that much! Dave and I had time to run thru a request for Saturday night “Winter Wonderland” and had just started sorting out “Shine” when Nige arrived. He soon got his gear in so we could ‘shut that door’! Ran thru “Shine“ several times. Dave’s vocal range has improved since he gave up smoking so he wasn’t sure which line to sing, but eventually he settled for the lower one on the verse and chorus and the higher one in the coda. Despite it sounding straightforward, “Shine” has an unusual chord sequence that is difficult to remember. After many play throughs I still have trouble remembering the chords while I’m concentrating on the harmonies and just need it to be played through many times until it gets delegated into the fingers. Poor Nige has to sing it through everytime and because he can’t help doing the intro to Lulu’s “Shout” at the end so it is quite wearing for the boy’s throat (just hope he doesn’t do it on stage). Eventually we moved on to a bit of maintenance on the Searchers agreeing a less hasty start and a short transition into “Needles and Pins”. Then we played “Travelodge California” to exercise the solo. “Winter Wonderland” was next on the agenda and that seemed to go OK in the key of C. Had a tea break and started work on “Nowhere Man”. Although we could get harmonies going well enough, they were not the right harmonies. I think Dave and I would have settled for that last year, but thank goodness Nige makes us go that extra mile to get it right nowadays. So we tried various versions out before agreeing we needed to research it further before we take it forward. We then focussed on some maintenance improvements to the current Beatle medley. Nige and Dave reviewed timing and rhythms for “8 Days a Week” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” and then we spent quite a bit of time getting the timing of the drum entry right for “I Feel Fine”. Dave is also to remember to sing the hi-lo melody on the first word of the lead line phrases e.g. Baby becomes (hi) Bay (lo) Bee. Next we ran thru the Xmas trio “Merry Xmas Everybody” Dave takes the hi line Mog takes the lo line and Nige will be in Scotland …, “White Xmas” Dave to croon the first line on his own and “Rockin Around the Xmas Tree”, a tad slower with a swing please! We fooled around with “Girl from Ipanema”, "Wanna Make Those Eyes" and some Eagles stuff before we moved on to do a bit of maintenance on “Crazy Little Thing” Nige doing the hi lines on the answer backs. Dave playing straight under the guitar accents in the verse and we all will remember to stop on the F in the middle 8. After another couple of runs through “Shine” we closed off with a review of “Wonder of You” agreeing Nige to take the hi line on the girly answerbacks and some attention to the dynamics. Loud beginning, soft verse rising to attack the end of each verse; soft under guitar solo with a climax in volume during the final section and coda. With freezing fingers we packed up. Had an uneventful run home listening to Bob Dylan’s Theme Time. Outside temperature dropped to -1 as I got home at midnight.

Dave A's Retirement Bash at Parish Hall Marks Tey

I encouraged Jacqui to come along so she could meet Dave A’s wife Rita. We set off at 4:45pm but I made a significant overestimate of the time to get there as we had an uneventful cruise down the A14 and A12 getting there far too early at about 5:50pm. We had a quick drive round Marks Tey to see if we could get a cup of tea to no avail, so I rolled back up at the hall and loaded in. First impressions were good. It is quite a big hall with a big stage surrounded by curtains (but not as big as the Central Hall Wymondham). There is a very high roof over both the stage and the hall and the medium echo sounded kind to vocals. I was just loading in when Dave A and Rita arrived, followed shortly after by Dave and Jen. Rita set about organising the room with tables and Jacqui bagged one near the stage for the band.

Set up went smoothly, it was a pleasure to be able to get behind the Bose and Reverb units to plug stuff in without adopting the stance of a contortionist. By the time Nigel arrived (having come through Sudbury) I was about set up. It didn’t take Nige and Dave long to complete their set up and I had a brief listen to their mic sound out in the hall before putting on my background music. Now the strange thing was that, although the sound carried as it should, it was a little on the soft side. I thought this would be easily catered for by turning the master volume up one notch so we did that.

Rita gave Dave our playing times and I set up my spare SM58 mic for speeches. Red shirts, white ties and a couple of cans of Carlsberg later we were ready to go. We opened set 1 up with the standard start. The volume on stage was quite loud so we eased back a little and progressed right through to “Apache” when we got Dave and Rita up to the front of the dance floor to do the Shadows walk. That went down really well but after “Only You” we only had time to do the Hollies medley before it was time to wrap up for the buffet. Mind you I thought we sang the Hollies well and we got a big round of applause for it. When we came off Jacqui said the harmonies were really excellent and the overall sound very good. As we grabbed some sandwiches Dave A said much the same but he added that it could be a bit louder. Discussing it with Nigel we concluded that the curtains were absorbing a lot of the sound and we should have positioned the Bose further forward and to the middle of the stage (like we did at the Jubilee Hall a few weeks previous). It was too late to do anything about it so we would just have to soldier on and maybe turn the master volumes up a bit more. This we did, but it was really loud on stage as we played through a mainly standard set 2. We had a few up and dancing in this set and the bantering was working very well with all three of us contributing strongly. After the Eagles we played a request for a Drifters song with “Save The Last Dance for Me” in D. Dave and I did some pleasant backing vocals to accompany Nige’s lead lines (some of which were made up) and we got a good round of applause for it. After Alice and Elvis made a brief visit to the building, we got the crowd up and dancing with the Bay City Rollers and “Sweet Caroline”. Then we did a new routine - the damaged hand scam! Nigel howled holding his hand in pain as we started “Somewhere Under the Sun”. Dave and I stopped playing to ask if there was a ‘Bass Player in the House!’ Of course we volunteered Dave A to do it; so he came up to play while Nige took Jenny for a turn round the dance floor. Dave did a fine job considering he wasn’t prepared and Nige came back to help us close with “Love is all Around”. But at the end of it I spotted Rita had just started dancing; so we did an extra slowey for her, playing “3 Times A Lady”. Had another break and met up with some of the muso’s attending. By the time we started Set 3 there were only about 40 minutes to do. Dave and I got on stage and got a beat going when in danced the ‘flying scotchman’ - wearing the kilt. So we took time out to do a verse of “Nigel Where’s Your Trooosers” before starting “500 Miles”. Then we played right through the party dance sequence to “Hi Ho”. A highlight being Jenny helping Nigel out of his kilt without him missing a note! We only had a few minutes left at this point so we did “Pretty Woman” to close the show and “Unchained” as the planned encore. But we got such a good response that Dave A asked us to do one more – so we did a spirited version of “Merry Xmas Everybody” earning a great crowd reaction to finish the night on a high. Everyone we spoke to said how much they enjoyed the band and what great vocals we had. We handed out several cards. Then it was the long pack and load up on a very cold night. Jacqui’s mic stand monkey covers got some nice comments from one of the muso’s wives as we packed up. And Dave did plenty of talking to the muso’s while the rest of us worked so fast that we were loaded by 12:30am. But it took another 5 minutes to de-ice cars before we finally got going. We formed a convoy to negotiate the A12 and A14 at a steady 55mph with Dave peeling off on the A140 and Nige on the A1088. Jacqui and I got in about 1:30am feeling alert enough to have some cocoa before retiring for the night.

Trimingham Caravan Park

Jacqui was accompanying me to East Runton to meet up with Michele for a visit to the Cromer “End of the Pier” show, so I agreed an early departure time of 4:15pm to take account of Friday traffic and dropping her off. In the event we got away at about 4:25pm and had a slowish run right through to Sheringham where we came across a sign saying the coast road was closed. I arrogantly assumed it was a joke or admin error and tried to get through; but there were some serious barriers across the road so I had to turn back and go right back up to the main road and divert round via Manor Farm. It was a bit later than we planned when I dropped Jacqui off but I had a time to say a quick hello to Dan via Skype. Michele explained there was a burst water main that had closed the road. I carried on to Cromer but there was another diversion – this time for a street Xmas party “Bah Humbug”! Nevertheless, I made good time from Cromer to the gig getting there for about 6:50pm. Nige arrived shortly after and Dave 5 minutes later. While we waited for Andy to come and unlock I handed over some e-ciggie refills to Dave that the band had acquired to pay him back for phone calls and misc’ dressing up trimming expenses. Andy eventually let us in but warned that the site had been very quiet and he didn’t expect many in. Mind you parking up was still a problem with a couple of residents cars in the way! We got unloaded and started setting up. We were using conventional gear to avoid the problems of mounting the Bose off-stage. Nige was using his Behringer with an EV 15” cab for bass and I was using my Mesa Lonestar for guitar and the “old” PA for vocals etc. In the week I had bolted in a TC Electronics Voiceworks unit into the PA rack to provide reverb under control of the usual PA footswitch. Only trouble would be that the indicators on the Voiceworks were very discreet so I would have to pay special attention to reverb changes. Although I had brought the Roland synth, I decided to omit strings from this performance to reduce set up time and see how we got on without it. We got the PA all working without too much trouble (Nige had to lend Dave a monitor lead and the pots on the monitor needed a bit of tweaking) but the sound wasn’t great and I ended up fiddling around with the enhancement and equalisation, eventually getting an semi-acceptable middley sound that didn’t feedback too much. The guitar sounded good but the Mesa gives a much more dynamic response than the Bose meaning I would have to play more subtly to avoid big spikes in guitar volume. We ran through a bit of “Just One Look” and Nige took a step out front to listen and reported that the sound would pass muster. The room was relatively empty so I calculated that the bit of toppy feedback we were close to would be absorbed as people arrived. We had a round of beers (on the house) and I briefed the boys that we would exercising some less often played numbers from our reserve repertoire on the night. The audience had grown to about 20 around the bar area as we started off set 1. The sound was different and maybe a tad loud, but we got used to it as we played through to “Good Luck Charm” without incident. At this point we departed from the usual by doing a good rendition of “Peggy Sue”. While we were ‘off piste’ I got the boys to do a couple of instrumentals with “Walk Don’t Wipe Out” and “Flingel Bunt”, to which I had a Shadows dance to so I could assess the sound – it was OK and yes I could do the walk to it! Then we did “Raining In My Heart” as a slowey and I thought we played and sang it well considering it hadn’t been aired for a while. We carried on mixing, matching and bantering our way through the set doing the usual 12 string 60’s stuff and following up with a good “How Long” (it got a good round of applause), a presentable ”Rockin Around the Xmas Tree” and a nicely paced “Blue Suede Shoes” complete with solo key change to try and baffle Nigel – but he was right there with the B to A! We finished off with “Three Times A Lady” without strings and it worked well enough. We took a break and took on board water and lime (on the house again!) and had just resumed with the opening chords to “Travel lodge California” when in came Jacqui and Michele; I was able to blurt out a quick hello and then we were into the song which we played well. Of course Jacqui and Michele gave it a good round of applause - it was just like having a reasonable sized audience again! The Searchers medley was going well up to my wrong chord as I forgot the key change to “Don’t Throw Your Love Away” which threw Dave out on vocals. But we soon got back on track and carried straight on with a good performance of the Beach Boys and Eagles sequence before departing again from the usual order with a ‘Take That, Take This, Take The …… Other’ tribute to Morrisons supermarket: “Shine”. This went quite well considering Dave and I are still trying to gel on harmonies. We followed up with “If You Had a Beautiful Body” and “Dance the Night Away” which both swang along nicely. I had a bit of finger trouble on the solo but I don’t think anyone was counting! Then we did a subtle “White Xmas” before we got back on track with a longer Elvis routine featuring both “Can’t Help Falling” (Dave nearly missed the key change) and “The Wonder of You”. After “Sweet Caroline” we did the Bay City Roll and wrapped up with “Love Is All Around”. We were just able to say hello to the ladies and hear about the jolly good pier show, when we realised we only had half an hour to go. So we got rapidly back on to do an alternative soft rock session including: “Can’t Get Enough, All Right Now, The Wanderer, You Really Got Me, Rockin All Over The World, Bony Maronie” before wrapping up with “Merry Xmas Everybody” and “Shakin All Over” spot on midnight. After doing a couple of ritual shouts for “More”, Michele said her goodbyes and got on her way back home. Dave was working the small crowd and with Jacqui helping me to pack up, I was nearly loaded before Dave had even thought about packing up his drums. In fact Nige and I took a bet on whether he would ring Jenny to come out and help or he would leave it ‘til the next day. In the event he did pack it up (surprisingly quickly) so we called the bet an honourable draw ;-). Jacqui and I got off about 12:50 am leaving Dave and Nige to continue the glad handing. Had a good run home getting in about 2:15am.

Gressenhall Social Club

It was a dark, foggy, cold night as I set off, but the fog cleared as I got to Thetford. I decided to carry on to Swaffham and pick up the A47 to Dereham and all went smoothly until I got to Dereham. The combination of lack of road signs and poor lighting led me to make the wrong choice of road North, I was heading to Holt rather than Fakenham! I had a feeling things weren’t right so I pulled in after a couple of miles and checked the map. Luckily I had pulled into a by road heading towards the Fakenham road, so I was soon back on track. It seemed increasingly dark as I got to Gressenhall but I saw a sign saying ‘Live Music’ and I was soon parked up at the back of the club where there is access to the small concert room through the fire doors. By the time I got unloaded Nige arrived and we were well on the way to set up by the time Dave and Jen arrived also having got lost (Dave had to phone relatives for directions!). Nige remembered this room as having poor acoustics bit it seemed fine as we powered things up. A short reverb, maybe a tad light on low frequency projection but no nasty harsh echos to deal with. During the week I had checked out the reverb / mixer unit and found a dirty jack socket switch on the FX return socket. Rather than take it apart I had simply worked round it by plugging the MPX1 return into spare normal mono input 10. Testing it out I was pleased to hear it all worked as it should, but there was an appreciable hum that I initially put down to rural electricity. However, I remembered we sometimes had similar problems with hum on the old PA so I made a mental note to check this out further; ‘cos it could be an earth loop between Nige’s Bose, FX Rack and my Bose. Anyway, I set levels to minimise it and we had a quiet run thru “Merry Xmas, Rocking Around the Xmas Tree and White Xmas”. The audience started to arrive and Dave knew several people from the off, and there were a couple of muso’s there who were happy to talk at us a lot! Nige got the beers in while I put my background music on and Dave glad handed a bit. We elected to change in the kitchen near the stage rather than the office in the other bar. We donned our red shirts and white ties and set off at 8:30 to do an hour for the first set. Not a bad sound on stage as we worked through to the Everly’s. I would say there were about 40 people in the room by then. So it was about half full, but they gave us a good response to the banter and lots of warm applause for the music. Dave got the muso’s up for the Shadows walk and it brought the house down. But being out front I thought the guitar sound was a bit muddy; it was only when I returned to the stage I realised I had set the GT-10 to 12 string by mistake (and that has a 3dB of bass boost on it!) From then on we were very confident in our bantering and we played pretty well as well. Dave took his time through the guitar changes and we had some dancers up in the slowies and rock’n’roll (which I supplemented with “Be Bop a Lula”). We skipped “How Long” to stick to the 60’s theme and soon ended the hour announcing “I Believe” as the ‘boy band‘ closer and that went really well with this audience. In the break we had some prolonged chats with the muso’s and others and I was asked if we could turn out for a charity gig in January. I said I was away but Dave might be able to fix them up with a band. Got back on to play set 2 starting with a good rendition of the Searchers – with no significant mistakes. There were a few up and dancing so Dave made a good call to go straight into “Do It Again” and then on into the Eagles. I fluffed a couple of notes in “Take It Easy” and things got a bit raggier after that. But we were going down exceptionally well so I think we must have been putting more effort into feel than precision. We played through to Neil Diamond which got a great reception and then Dave called for “Shang a Lang” which continued the dancing well. I stopped it going on into “Bye Bye Baby” because a hard looking rocker had come up while we were playing and asked for some rock’n’roll – so I called “Jailhouse Rock” (I meant to do Blue Suede but couldn’t bring it to mind) and then we followed up with a bit of a ragged “Crazy little Thing” before finishing with “Love is all Around” to another great reception. For set 3 we were in the white and Dave and I started off 500 miles. without Nige because he was busy changing into the kilt. When he made his entrance I did a couple of verses of “Nigel Where’s Your Trousers” as he danced round the room and the audience and the band were howling with laughter. Played on through the party dance sequence to “All Right Now” keeping the small crowd dancing all the way. Then we did a good version of “Can’t Get Enough” that I think was a bit too modern for them. But it quietened them down enough for us to do “Unchained” and “American Trilogy” both of which brought the house down. Amongst the applause there were shouts for a Xmas song. By then we were into to closing phase so we swang into “Merry Xmas” with Nige doing a great job leading us through it, and then we signed off with “Pretty Woman”. Bernie the guvnor came up and asked if they would like one more - “YES” they said, so we wrapped up with “Great Balls” to an enthusiastic ovation. We packed and loaded up steadily and were ready to go by about 12:45am when Dave stopped me and pointed out one of my headlights was out - that explained why it seemed such a dark night on the road getting there! Had an uneventful trip back via Watton and was home for 2am.

Constitutional Club Bury St Edmunds Ben’s Birthday Party.

The weather reports from the steppes of Norfolk were bad but Dave set off in plenty of time to get to my house for 5:30ish as planned. In the event he was slowed by a blizzard on the A11 and arrived about 15 minutes after Nige who had had a good snow free journey down from Necton. We got the boys tea and biscuited up and I arranged a convoy to venture to downtown Bury St Edmunds in zero temperature (but no snow thank goodness). We successfully navigated the one way system to be outside the club at 6:30ish as planned. I directed Nige into the last free on street parking slot and Dave and I parked on the pavement to unload. We got the gear quickly in through the fire doors as some of the party guests arrived. Dave and I then drove off to the market square to park and by the time we walked back, Ben had arrived and we were able to organise running order for the night. The main thing was that speeches would be after set 1. I had printed out our set lists to include Juke Box requests made by Ben in a red font. So as we set up, I plugged my spare Shure SM58 into the new stagebox to deliver centred sound for speeches. So far so good. It was as I came to test out the reverb that we ran into technical trouble. It just wasn’t happening through Nige’s Bose. It was too noisy and dark for any serious diagnostics, so I quickly reset the reverb to allow 10% of the dry signal to flow through and that seemed to work in a fashion so I settled for that. Tuning the guitars was also problematic as they had chilled right down during the spell in the car. As we were running out of time, I set up my Sony MP3 to deliver background music through just my Bose rather than the stage box into both. The place had filled up with a youngish crowd. We were using the kitchen as a dressing room and we got changed into the red with white ties whilst various guests popped to drop off cakes cards and presseys. Ben had bought us a beer already and the bar guy gave us 3 pint glasses to fill up on tap water from the kitchen, so we were all set for a cheap night. As we emerged, Jacqui, Claire and Jen arrived looking thirsty and just in time for the buffet. It was about 8:20 when we got on stage, the main lights dimmed and on came the mirror ball casting a seasonal, snowy sensation across the band and dance floor - it was show time! As we started up with “Foot Tapper” I thought the sound was OK, but as we moved into the vocal numbers it got increasingly muddy with a harsh middley slap back from wooden surfaces. We progressed on to “Good Luck Charm” in good enough order when I announced the first of Ben’s requests – “Peggy Sue”. This went well, we followed Nige’s arrangement without any error and we got some audience reaction despite their continued concentration on tucking into drinks and grub. After a short “Young Ones”, Dave then persuaded Ben and his mate Tom to come up and do the Shadows walk with me; and that went very well. Despite the poor on stage sound we resumed with a fair performance of “Seasons of Gold” which had some of the audience bopping in their chairs. Then we got Trevor and some of the girls up to play enthusiastic tambourines in “Mr Tambourine Man” before swinging on with the ‘sixties’ theme by playing the Hollies and Beatle medleys. It was after an OK ish version of “How Long” we did the next request for Ben with “Jailhouse Rock” which started to generate some hip action; and we even had a few up and dancing as we traversed through “Rock around the Clock” into “Summertime Blues”. Dave made a good call to finish with “3 Times a Lady” which got the dance floor busy with romantic couples – they may even have taken our announcement that it was a bum clutcher seriously! We stopped for about half an hour while some very amusing speeches were done, the cake was presented and a rousing Happy Birthday was sung! In the break the ladies told Dave to tell me and Nigel to turn up our mics. Dave translated this to turn up the guitars boys. We opened up set 2 with “Hotel California” which I was pleased to get largely right and I was happy enough with the solo guitar sound – maybe needs to be a tad louder. We played through the Searchers, Eagles and Beach Boys before pausing to announce “Shine” as another request. This is a complex song and we got through it, but I was all over the place trying to remember the chords. Still it got a few up and dancing. Carried on with Ben’s request for “Crazy Little Thing” and then “Alice” complete with audience reaction. I judged that some of the girls were getting well oiled by their hearty answer backs! We picked and mixed the next few songs and skipped the Elvis routine so we could finish with a request sequence of “Sweet Caroline – Midnight Hour – Love is All Around”. Nige had made a good call to avoid the ‘Bay City Roll’ at this gig so we finished set 2 to a good reception despite a worsening on stage sound. In the break Dave did a bit of selling the band to the club and we changed into the white. Claire had returned with her chum Sarah to see the last set. Nige was looking a bit unwell with his cold but, good trouper that he is, we strode out menfully to do set 3. Starting with “500 Miles” we played non-stop through to “All Right Now”. We had had an increasingly wild audience dancing perilously close to the band, joining in lustily on the sing-a-long bits in “Hey Baby” and “Hi Ho” and getting a long conga train going in “Locomotion”. The band was particularly amused by one of the girls putting up a courageous performance to keep her modesty by holding up her strapless dress through some mad gyrations that really should have brought it down! We continued the high energy sound with ”Can’t Get Enough” (I got the solo right! and requests for “Rockin All Over the World” and “Jumping Jack Flash” before calming things down with a long version of “Unchained”. It was approaching midnight so we wrapped up with “Pretty Woman” doing our band goodbye’s towards the end. But there was enough audience reaction to warrant an encore, so we ended the night with “Wonderful Tonight”. We packed up steadily but it still took ‘til about 1 am before Dave and I brought the vehicles around for load up. It was sub-zero as we loaded up and I was glad to be on a short run home. I led the boys out to the Thetford Road and they continued on as I went home. I think Dave got in about 2:45am after negotiating some treacherous roads in the Norwich area. We had displayed great versatility on the night, this gig was in complete contrast to the previous outing. Next day we got an email from Ben to say how much all had enjoyed it!

Practice at Skeyton Hall

Bit late getting away and ran into slow traffic en route to Thetford. By the time I got to the hall Dave was set up. Still it didn’t take me long to set up and test out the new stage box for the reverb unit. It all seemed to work OK into my Bose. While I was at it I reset the reverb to completely wet, I now have to decide on whether there should be any ‘dry’ feed through when the reverb is bypassed. Theory says no, but I like the idea of announcements getting some feed into both Bose, so I left it for the time being. Ran through the high “Shine” harmonies with Dave and we had about cracked it when Nige arrived. He said that as he rolled up outside it sounded sufficiently good, he thought we had recruited a couple of girls to sing it! He professed to being full of chips and a feeling a cold was on its way. So we had a medical discussion for a few minutes while he set up - I haven’t seen any operation on Holby that can cure a cold but I did advise Boot First Defence nasal spray as a means of defeating it before takes hold – expensive though! Now Nige had set up just too far away for the stagebox leads to reach, so weren’t able to test out with his Bose. Rather than get some longer leads out I decided to take the risk and check it at the next gig. When we got started we followed my practice agenda very closely. We warmed up with: Travel Lodge – got it right first time, Hollies – again right first time, Beatle Medley – changed a chord in “Can’t Buy Me Love”, spent quite a bit of time on the solo to “All My Loving” for which I have devised a version that follows the George Harrison style but an octave lower to give it more punch; and we did “I Feel Fine” enough for Dave to practice the drum starts / stops like the record. “Can’t Get Enough” went well enough but we ended up listening to the original to capture some of the timing nuances. I was quite pleased with the beefed up guitar sound which hadn’t been tested at volume before. Then we concentrated on Ben Burton’s requests for his party on Saturday:

* Mustang Sally Set 3 Nige Vocal Key A – run through was fine, we’ll improvise on the night

* Peggy Sue Set 1 Nige Voc Key G. Run thourgh was a bit confused but we got to the end. So we are not sure of arrangement or solo, but we agreed to listen and improvise better on the night.

* Jailhouse Rock Set 1 Mog Vocal Key A - run through was fine

* Jumping Jack Flash Set 3 Mog Vocal Key A - Nige suggested some chord changes. My arrangement is more modern than the Stones so there is a big license to improvise which we agreed to do on the night.

* Midnight Hour Nige Vocal Key C Set 3 run through was nicely paced and sounded good

* Rocking All Over the World Set 3 Mog / Dave Vocal E We were careful to start with a slower rhythm. Dave and I are confident we’ll remember the words on the night so generally OK.

* Shine - Set 1 or 2 Nige Voc Key D. We played this complex song through a lot and are confident enough to launch it on Saturday, but it will take a few gigs to get nicely honed. Considering Nige has emphysema he certainly belted the ending of this out; easily holding the final notes the longest!

* Crazy Little Thing – we did it slightly slower with the guitar starting it. We included some small chord / arrangement improvements, looking for strong harmonies on answer backs

* Ran through Beautiful Body Nige Voc Key E - for my benefit to find where the F#m fitted.

* Shaking All Over Mog Voc key Em - checked drum break into guitar solo

* Dance the Night Away Mog Voc key E – checked guitar return to solo and harmonies on chorus. All was OK on the night

So we packed up feeling like happy bunnies having had a constructive practice. I got away about 10:30pm and was home about 11:45 after a fast run down the A11. I checked out the hall at the Constitutional Club on the Friday. It all looked fine. So we are all set - I hope!

Bure Valley House Aylsham

We had been booked to play a sheltered housing scheme get together in a (smallish by our standards) residents lounge, so Nige and I had agreed a compact gear set up especially for this gig. We would be using just his Behringer PA powering one of his 15” EV cabinets and one of my 12” EV SX300’s; panning the bass hard left thru the 15” and the guitar right thru the 12” and panning the 3 vocal mics into the centre. No synth, so the only other electrical thing needed was my Roland pedalboard. I was a bit slow getting away and immediately ran into local Friday afternoon Bury traffic congestion to get under the railway bridge. I made a bit of time up on the run through Garboldisham and, with a fast run on the A11, I was on the Norwich ring road just before 5pm. So I fared well getting to Aylsham and was parking up at the gig at 5:30pm as we agreed. No sign of Dave, so I waited 5 minutes then rang him - he hadn’t left yet! Then Nige arrived. We talked our way in past the security system to weigh up the lounge. There was a clear corner area for the band so we started to bring the gear in and just then Dave and Jen rolled up. Dave was only using a “jazz” kit with one tom, hi hat, ride, snare and bass drum; and that didn’t take long to get in. We were just setting up when Dorothy, the very nice lady manager, arrived to show us a cupboard to store cases and a dressing room in a large disabled toilet. Set up went OK and it all sounded fine - just the job for this compact gig. The room was filling up rapidly and it was getting warm so I dished out some colas and we retreated to the dressing room to put the white shirts on. By the time we got back the room was packed and we had to compress our set up ‘cos some of the old folk were so close they were beginning to look like they were part of the band! Started off with “Foot Tapper” and played through to the Everlys, which we preceded with the Beverly sisters routine which went well at this gig - they were all singing along to “Sisters” as we minced around in our wigs! We followed up with routines featuring Dave as the ‘Cliff’ of Cromer (he’s always falling down!) and the ‘Shadows’ which also went well with some ladies bravely doing the Shadows walk armed with blow up guitars. We departed from the usual show to do the 50’s and country medleys before wrapping up with “Only You” and an enthusiastic Beatles medley. Then we took a break while they started their supper buffet. As it was to be an early finish we agreed to go back on during the “pudding” to play some background instrumentals – “Flingel Bunt, FBI, Sleepwalk and Theme for Young Lovers”. Then we resumed our easy listening show with “Lady is a Tramp” and “Alice” before picking and mixing suitable pop songs through to our finish with “Unchained”, “Pretty Woman” and a request for “Wonderful Tonight” coming ‘off stage” to a great response. Throughout the night Nige had done an excellent job of fitting in with some unfamiliar repertoire, and the selected music and bantering had gone very well on this gig. In fact it had been a really great night for audience interaction and response and we were particularly pleased at generating several hearty bouts of laughter from our entertainment routines. Dorothy was also well pleased with the way the night had gone and Dave gave out several cards to prospective clients. One lady came up to me to compliment us on our singing and asked if we would be on the radio or TV so she could see the show again! I told her we were on You Tube! Then it was pack up time. This didn’t take very long at all and while Dave did some excellent goodnight bulling, Nige was able to demonstrate his toy cigarette again (I tell you that boy should be on commission!) Then we all stole a quick goodbye kiss from our excellent host Dorothy and hit the road. Nige followed me through to Norwich zooming off onto the A47 whilst I settled in for a good run home, getting in just before midnight. Jacqui was still up watching Children in Need, so we had a drink and stayed up for an hour or so before retiring for the night. With a cancelled gig on Saturday we were able to have a lazy weekend and prepare for the builders who arriving to rebuild the conservatory on the Monday.

Showcase at 'The Talk' Norwich

Left home just after 2pm with just my Godin 6 string, FX pedal and suit bag loaded in the back of Jacqui’s Focus. That was all I needed because we were using Charlie’s gear as Zebra Express were also on the bill. Traffic was a bit slow ‘til I got on the A11 and then it was a clear run to Norwich and I found Oak Road and The Talk night club without any problem. I was glad I brought the Focus ‘cos the car park was getting full and the Galaxy would have been a problem to park. Got out the car and found Dave, Steve and Laura in Dave’s van sipping coffee. Dave had been there for quite a while helping Charlie with his gear and setting up the drums. It was about 3:30pm when Dave and I went into the venue to find a fairly chaotic scene developing. I found Charlie and his soundman Rick on the stage wiring stuff up by torchlight. He was short of an XLR lead but I couldn’t help ‘cos I had left my lead bag at home. Anyway I got my gear in and Charlie pointed me in the direction of a Vox AC30 which he had set up for guitar. It took me a few minutes to find out how to switch off the tremolo and find a tone to suit. In the end I used the normal channel which was a bit beefier than the top cut channel. He had it miked up with a Shure SM57 (the ideal choice in my opinion) and he’d set me up a SM57 to sing thru. I think Nige and Dave were similarly equipped. (the SM57 is reckoned to be better for female voices, so Charlie must have an inkling about our band!). Then I sorted out a crib sheet for “Just One Look” so Charlie could stand in on bass for the sound check. Several other acts were sound checking through the house system whilst all this was going on. We got to our spot and we had a bit of trouble with the bass drum sound, it was picking up a rattle and was none too deep in tone. I fiddled around with the mic placement a bit until we got rid of the rattle. But Charlie wasn’t really happy with middley sound, still it was the best that could be done in the time available. So we ran through a couple of verses and middle 8 of “Just One Look” with Charlie on bass. The onstage sound was not what we were used to. The guitar was plenty loud enough as was the bass and Dave’s mic but I couldn’t hear my vocal and Steve confirmed it was hardly audible out front. On the whole the sound was much louder and middlier than we are used to. Charlie and Rick made a few adjustments to the mix and we tested it out; they had upped my front of house mic volume but the monitor was up as far as was safe. They assured us we’d get a fine mix out front on the night. So we agreed that was good enough and cleared the stage for other acts. By then it was about 6pm, so we put our clothes in the men’s dressing room and went out front to listen to the final soundchecks. I was pleased to see the bar had opened up so we got a round of beers in and rested up. Dave did a circuit of glad handing and introduced me to Mark Carter who was viewing acts on the evening. Nige arrived and Dave orientated him backstage while I got a beer in for him. Steve showed me the running order. We were on 5th and it was at this point it dawned on me that at the end of our show we needed to do a one minute interview with John Chandler who was compereing on the night. Dave thought it best that I did it. Nige arrived to listen to an excellent jazz trio who were backgrounding up to showtime – featuring a really great guitarist. I remembered to tell Nige to stick with Charlie’s bass amp sound and control tone from the bass. Then we had the house organist come up and ask what intro outro organ music we wanted – in the end we agreed none! Suddenly it was 6:30pm and it was show time. The first act on was a very impressive 80’s tribute show – featuring Freddie Mercury, Maddona etc. A lot of the sound was programmed from a Korg Triton, but the guitar was live and he played well. A very professional start off only marred by a bit of radio link interference on the guitar. The next few acts were mainly girly solo artistes and duo’s - all very good though. After much discussion we decided to wear the red shirts with white ties for our spot so we went and got changed. First Dave needed the toilet so he had to set off back from the dressing room to the gents. Then I needed to pass water. Nige watched the door whilst I made use of the sink (like a Blackpool guest house in the 50’s), fortunately he was able to hold off the Madonna look alike from the first band who wanted to come in to retrieve their suit bags. Suitably relieved, when Dave returned, I agreed a last minute reduction in the running order with the guys, dropping “Sweet Caroline” and shortening “Just One Look”. Then the 4th act finished and there was a break in proceedings whilst the first act moved their gear and Charlie, Dave, Nigel and I moved our gear into place for our set. Unfortunately, in the process some of the other groups drum staging fell on the boom stand I was using and broke it. So I worked round it by unscrewing the mic clip from the boom and I put it straight on the stand. I turned round to see Dave tripping in the dark and brushing into his music stand which fell over, breaking the light. We had no time for a plan B, so there was a brief moment of panic ‘til Nigel suggested that “Dave really knew the words, he only used the book as a prop, he’d be fine and in the event of any forgetting we would cover him”, 30 seconds later the curtain came back and we were on. I stepped forward to the mic, hit the A chord and we were off. It sounded loud and a lot less smooth than we were used to but we had no control so we just went for it. Nigel said later he saw Rick abandon his post on the mixing desk as soon as we started. We were soon at the end of the first song. There was some applause and Dave did his best to introduce the Shadows despite a long echo on the mic. I went out onto the dance floor offering a rubber guitar to any dance partners to no avail. So off we went again. I could hear out front that the guitar and bass were quite loud compared to the drums, but we got a better mix when the toms came in. The guitar sound wasn’t as clean as I like but it certainly cut through and we finished in good order to some applause. Nige did a well paced Beatle intro and Dave threw out my wig; a bit short so I couldn’t quite catch it and had to get it off the floor. My mic seemed a bit low in volume for the start of “Eight Days” but Rick was back on the job and seemed to fix it as we went. “Can’t Buy Me Love” went OK and again we finished in good order. Then I did the Elvis intro. I thought I paced it well and we got a bit of a titter as we talked through the subject of a guest artiste recently seen in a chip shop in Bolton arriving in the building. Nige and I started off the A riff to bring Dave on and good fellow that he is, he stood up loud and proud to show who he was meant to be. It was hard for me to see his silence gesture so I think he had to do it a couple of times before we stopped. Then we played “The Wonder of You”. I thought we did this fairly well and we got the big ending close to what we had arranged. I confused the start to “Pretty Woman” by mentioning Gene Pitney but we got off to an OK rendition with Dave doing a fine, “and its goodnight from the Foot Tappers” bit at the end - and then we were finished, or so I thought. I suddenly remembered I had to do one minute chat with John Chandler! So I strode back to the front of the stage and did a confused chat about holidays before reminding the audience that we were ‘a compact, affordable band available for gigs in the New Year’. We came off please it was behind us. After changing I headed for the bar. I resisted the temptation to have a strong Stella and settled for a Carling lager shandy instead. We watched the other acts for an hour or so, including Zebra Express who were very loud with an incredibly filling twangy bass sound. Dave did the glad handing again and Nige got some feedback on our performance from one of his mates in “Thick and Thin”. He reported that his mate said the band sounded fine - you couldn’t compare an honest live band sound with pre-recorded backings. Charlie and Rick had also said the band sounded fine, but Steve said the snare was absent and (as I suspected) the guitars and Dave’s mic were a bit too high in the mix. It turned out that there was no signal coming from the snare mic (could be a battery if it’s a condenser mic?) Time was marching on so Dave took his van round the back and we helped him load up. I was getting a bit tired by 10:30pm so I set off home after we loaded up, but the guys stayed on a bit longer. Had a good run back on a cold night with a full moon home for 11:30pm. The next day Dave found he had left his mic stand at the gig, he was going back to search for it but it could be another casualty. Made me think of it in war terms so I have analogised the detailed description above with the following first world war summary:“We left the trenches (dressing room), went over the top (onto the stage), did our duty (played) and dodged the bullets (audience reaction); we retired in good order with no fatalities but sadly had some casualties (losing a mic stand or two and a music light) in the battle. We are sending out a stretcher party to recover one of the casualties (Daves Mic Stand) and we hope the Generals (Agents) will award some medals (gigs), but at least we’ll be mentioned in dispatches and talked about as brave soldiers (they did their bit with an honest sound).” The next day we found Mark Carter had put about 4 minutes of the show on You Tube.

East Tuddenham Jubilee Hall Divorced and Separated Club Dance.

In theory it was an easy drive over to this gig. Only trouble was there are extensive roadworks on the A47 approaching the village and, what looked like a fine approach road on the map turned out to be a one track lane. It was windy and raining as I rolled up to the hall. I found the caretaker and he pointed me in the direction of easy access fire doors. I was unloaded by the time Dave and Jen arrived (also coming down the one track Church Lane), so I gave them a bit of a lift in and we started to set up on a nice wooden stage in what is a fairly big hall. I set up at the middle back of the stage thinking the sound would get out diagonally past the side walls better. Nige arrived and did similar and we did a bit of a sound check with “I Feel Fine” Nige walked out front as far as he could and reported that the volume was low, so we shifted the Bose towers and the drums all forward about 3 feet. That seemed to do the trick, so we set off to do meeting, greeting and having a beer. The organisers asked me to set up their radio mic into our PA. Access to the reverb mixer was a bit tricky as it was all wired up so I plugged the radio receiver it into one of the line inputs on my Bose T1 digital mixer. This gave an adequate performance, but the mic was not the best and I struggled to get volume out of it without feedback. In the end it was just good enough for announcements so I settled for that. My white shirt wasn’t washed so we agreed to wear black with our Armistice Day poppies and white ties. We got underway about 8:40pm, with about 30 attending. We played through set 1 picking and mixing as we went. Most of the audience liked to dance and we got a bunch of ladies doing an enthusiastic Shadows Walk with the rubber guitars. The banter was going pretty well I thought, we were giving each other space to say things clearly and I was ‘ad libbing’ some appropriate lines for the venue and event. Also, occasionally the band worked well together generating a tighter beat than usual. Another positive thing was that the vocal quality was good despite our gigging the night before and, learning from the night before, I switched to 6 string for the Beatles which I played a lot better (not perfect, I still had a bit of finger trouble with “All My Lovin” but I did get a good 6 string guitar sound on “I Feel Fine”). Playing 6 string also made for a much smoother guitar change point because the boys could get into the Beatle wig banter while I wrestled with the guitar change. We extended the rock’n’roll again with “Be Bop” and finished in good order with the “I Believe”. In the break we all did a bit of glad handing. People were very enthusiastic about the band and apologetic for the low attendance. There were now about 40 attending and that was as good as it got. The weather had worsened and you could hear the rain beating on the roof at times. We opened up set 2 (minus ties and Dave wearing white) with the Searchers medley. That went very well, the band was strangely tight and together – it must be finally sinking in after several months playing it! Sticking on 12 string we played through the Eagles and Beachboys, when we bantered the audience into helping us sing “Alice”. The rest of the set went well and we wrapped up with a couple of slowies “Just Can’t Help” and “Love is all Around”. The governor came up to do the raffle. He was well pleased with the band, loved the professionalism and was also apologetic for the low turnout. Jenny managed to win a raffle prize again! We gave out plenty of cards and info sheets for people who were interested in booking the band. It was quite cold by the time we got underway for set 3. We played a reduced party dance sequence and populated the rest of the set with some slowies as requested. Finished off about 11:50pm with “Wonderful Tonight”. We got packed up and the rain had abated for the load up. Trouble was we had to load the cars standing in puddles. Nige had come out in just his slippers so he was a contender for trench foot! Got away about 1am and I was home for 2:30am on a wild and windy night. Had a quite Sunday, visited mum and in the evening I fell asleep in a chair only to be woken by Dave who phoned with the good news he had secured a Xmas Eve gig.

North Walsham Community Centre

I popped over early to have a chat with Dave about the upcoming showcase etc, but traffic was a bit bad so we only had about 45 minutes before we set off in convoy for the gig. Nevertheless we did finalise the running order for the showcase and I rearranged Dave’s music book reserves in alphabetical order. We arrived at the Community Centre to find Nigel already there (in just a shirt again despite the cool weather). He had opened up the stage door, so we just had to do a bit of serial display parking to get close enough to unload. It’s a big hall and big stage, so we were able to set up in plenty of space and set the master volumes to one notch over midway. Set up went well and the sound seemed fine, but there were a few people in so we didn’t do a formal sound check. Nigel found the stage light mixer and had a play around eventually settling for a cool blue wash for the start. Jenny and Laura arrived and Dave’s parents, looking in good form, had also shown up to support the band. Beryl?, the well organised guvnor for the night, came over with a list of our set and raffle times - it would be an 8:30 start on the dot! So we had time for a beer before entering our luxury dressing room to change into the pink to open set 1 only 30 seconds late. There was a good on stage sound and people got up and danced from the off. We followed the running order closely and bantering well enough and getting a good response from a good crowd of over a 100. We got some good local folk up to do a great bit of audience participation with the rubber guitars in the Shadows Walk – it’s a high stage but I got off gingerly to dance with them! So things went very well up to change over to the 12 string. “Mr Tambourine Man”, the opener for that sequence, went fine and the good news was the adjustments I had made to the Roland pedal 12 string settings in the week were spot on, resulting in a much more commanding sound. And things went well enough through the Hollies. But it was during the Beatles that I ran into trouble. Concentrating on vocals, my fingers went into auto mode and failed to remember some aspects of the changed key in “Eight Days” and also some of the chords to “All My Lovin”. After “All My Lovin” Dave set a cracking pace for “I Feel Fine” which was just beyond my ability to finger the riff properly on the 12 string. But I did manage to get Dave to back off the mic in “Can’t Buy Me Love”! To be fair we covered up well and I doubt anyone in the audience would have noticed; but once rattled it sometimes takes a few songs to settle down again. However, we soldiered on doing a good “How Long” and rock’n’roll session with added “Shake Rattle and Roll” before wrapping up with “I Believe” to complete the hour. The audience were clearly well used to hearing live acts and provided the hearty applause and dancing response a band needs to maintain its karma, so we were well pleased. We opened Set 2 with a country session. Dave did “Cheating Heart” and “I Love You Because” and Nige did a credible version of “If you had a Beautiful Body” from the Bellamy Brothers. We resumed normal service starting on the 12 string to do the Searchers, the Eagles and the Beachboys. I changed guitar whilst Dave and Nige did a good banter to introduce Alice. Somewhere along the line we played “Be Bop A Lula” as a request as we played through set 2 to finish with the Bay City Rollers. This all went down very well and a number of folk complimented us on the sound during the break. Jenny and Laura both won in the raffle. Nige set a calming red wash on the light then we were back on for a pretty standard set 3. Highlights were Nigel wearing the kilt in “500 Miles” and a well received “All Right Now” and shortly after a nicely paced “American Trilogy” - this was the first time I had used the flute setting on the Axon synth and I thought it came across as good as the Roland. We followed this with a very hurried Spencer Davis sequence before closing off with “Pretty Woman” and encoring with “Great Balls” and Wonderful Tonight”. Overall I thought it was a very good night for the band. We had all played and bantered well and it was nice to see a good turnout and reception for Dave in his home town. Steve had arrived in the last set and helped us pack up which was quite useful with Dave in full flow on the glad handing! Finally got away about 1 am and home for 2:15.

Norwich WMC

Set off about 5:50pm in a bit of drizzle but the rain got harder and harder as I progressed towards Norwich; almost torrential by the time I arrived on the inner ring road. Despite the poor visibility, I managed to get in the right hand lane for the turn onto St Benedicts St, but the one way then sweeps you off down St Swithins and up to the Charing Cross Y junction where you aren’t allowed to make a sharp right hand turn back onto St Benedicts St. Rather than go round Norwich again, I Iooked around, and then made the illegal right hander onto St Benedicts and then to immediately and illegally park up in front of the bollards blocking access to St Gregory’s Alley (leading up to the club). I suppose the legal way is to carry on round the ring road to Duke St and come back to Charing Cross to make a legal right hand turn at the cross roads. Anyway, moving on from a “Cooks Tour” of Norwich, I was pleased to see Nigel had arrived already and had found a way through the bollards to park in front of the club. I decided I would walk my gear up the alley to the club foyer making several rushed journeys to avoid getting the stuff wet. By this time Dave, Steve and Laura had arrived and, with Nigel’s help, they were rapidly getting the drums in. So I drove off and found the last free roadside parking spot a hundred yards further down St Benedicts. I walked back and gave Nige some guidance as he reversed through the bollards and he and Dave set off in the rain to find somewhere to park. Dave ended up in the multi-story whilst Nige set about negotiating a promising looking alley then, realising it was a dead end he had to reverse back out in zero visibility into the face of traffic!! Once out he had to drive around a bit more to find somewhere to park up. So it took quite some time before he got back to the club. The club was nicely decorated for Halloween, as were some of the staff who looked very fetching in their witches gear. Dave had got set up quickly and so he ventured out into their back yard to help start the Halloween BBQ. Fortunately this was set up under a gazebo, but unfortunately, it was very flimsy and he still got soaked. Meanwhile, Nige and I completed setting up; I was using the Axon guitar synth suitably built in, and integrated with, the reverb rack for this gig. It sounded OK to me, maybe not as full as the Roland synth but it seemed to do the job and is easier to set up. The overall sound on the stage was very boxy and toppy where I was, I think we were getting some rebound from the pillars. It was rapidly approaching show time, so we set off to do a quick change into the pink. The stress of parking and set up probably contributed to a downbeat dressing room atmosphere where we were questioning the meaning of life and why we were even doing this difficult gig. Anyway we left it all unresolved and hurried on down to the stage to concentrate on the start off. Dave did a good band intro in the middle of “Foot Tapper”. Following on with “Just One Look” we got halfway through when we got a signal to turn up the volume. So the Bose’s both got turned up a notch and we carried on as normal through to the Everlys. The on-stage sound was a bit too loud and I was glad of a break to adjust things when the guvnor came up and asked us to pose for some photo’s for the Eastern Daily Press. Then we got restarted to get a couple more numbers under our belt, when the Guvnor asked us to stop again to give a bit of an impromptu interview re’ the photo’s. After that, we soldiered on through the usual set 1 with not too bad a sound until we got to the Beatle medley which we extended to carry on from “Can’t Buy Me Love” into “All My Lovin and I Feel Fine”. It was all a bit hurried and there were some errors but it got a good response. Trouble was that then the guvnor was back to interrupt us again by asking us to make way for the raffle. So it was down tools for 20 minutes as the raffle progressed. Laura won some Tesco vouchers (which she sold to Nige later) and then we were back on in the white to start set 2 from “The Searchers” with me on the 12 string. Like the previous couple of gigs, I did the Eagles and Beachboys on the 12 string and I am fairly comfortable with that now. We got a few up and dancing as we progressed through the 70’s medley. But then the guvnor wanted us to stop yet again so he could read out some announcements. After that we re-started with “Halfway to Norwich” and then we were into the Elvis routine which, on this night, consisted of me and Nige doing a verse of “Mystery Train” to bring Dave on, followed by a great band performance of the “Wonder of You” before slowing down for “Just Can’t Help” - which got the slow dancers on the floor in force. After “Sweet Caroline”, we got cracking with the Bay City Rollers (filling the dance floor again!) and then an ‘improved’ “Crazy Little Thing”. I was playing the chords closer to the Queen arrangement and tried to slow it down a bit. This was all a bit unfair on Dave who hadn’t been party to the conversation Nigel and I had had about improving it; but we got through OK even if it was a bit untogether. After “Love is All Around” we worked through the party dance sequence to “Locomotion” when up comes the Guvnor once more to make an announcement he forgot earlier! But that gave me time to switch the Roland to its BadCo setting to play “Can’t Get Enough” - this was a bad move on my part ‘cos the guitar sound level was much too low and I had to fiddle with the Bose as we struggled on through the song. For the future I resolved to beef up my standard sustain sound rather than have a separate setting for this number. But by then we were over time so we finished off with “Unchained” which Dave signed off to Got packed up and found the rain had abated. With Steve in action load up wasn’t too bad once we’d recovered the vehicles. I got off just before 1am. Apart from some flooded roads in Thetford the journey home was fine and I was in bed for 2:30 am - although it all could have been an hour earlier ‘cos I haven’t changed the clock in the car to GMT yet! Pretty tired the next day so I was let off the visit to Mum which Gina and Jacqui did, and then we all drove over to Ely to have a pint and some lunch as we dropped Gina off at the station.

Sheringham Social Club

A good run over in windy but dry conditions, arriving at 6:30pm followed immediately by Nige who was dropping off his gear prior to popping round the corner to see someone. So I had a peaceful 10 minutes to start set up before Dave and Jen arrived and Nige returned. Got set up but somehow managed to plug the bass bins into each other so had a very thin sound until Nigel pointed out the bass bins weren’t connected. Then I found I’d left my mic on 15dB gain at 16Khz from when I tested for feedback sweep at practice. Sorted those issues out and had time for a brief sound test on my own. I was using a completely ‘wet’ setting on the Lexicon reverb for the first time and this had the effect of placing the synth more to the back and wide across the stage and also separating the vocals a tad. Next time out I’ll try adjusting the cross vocal sends between the Bose to slightly centre them a bit more, but I don’t want to make too many changes on any night in case I have trouble reversing them later on. The guitar through the Roland GT10 sounded a bit toppy but I was happy enough with the new bank of 12 string sounds with boosted bass, middle and volume that I had set up in the week. Nige’s mate Marty popped in and we had a chat about him using the house system at Manor Park. The room was filling up so I stopped fiddling and joined the others in working the crowd. Dave and Nige knew everyone and worked the whole room whilst I just had a chat with Rita and George who’s golden wedding we had done a couple of years before. Had time for a beer and a water before we got changed into the pink for a 8:45 pm start. Got off to a good start and good overall band sound with “Foot Tapper”, although I wasn’t too happy with the toppy guitar sound. Dave was a bit nervy from the off getting his announcements in a tad too early and talking over the applause. His hastiness prevented me or Nige getting in to say much to steady things down. But on the plus side he was enthusiastic and we were going down well. Dave obviously felt a bit under pressure because he knew so many people there. I looked up towards the end of “Heartbeat” to see Michele making an entrance so I waved hello (somehow without missing a beat!) and we carried on with the usual set 1. I thought we had a good sound on stage and the vocals were going quite well now all the colds had cleared up. Got a good response to “Apache” when I wnet out front to do the Shadows walk. I could hear the guitar sounded quite good as I slid round the dance floor. After “Only You” I switched to 12 string to do “Tambourine Man”, but I forgot to switch the GT10 to the 12 string bank, so had a very toppy sound that took me all the song to sort out. But I got it sorted for the “Hollies” and that went well enough, except I forgot to select boost for the solo in “I’m Alive”. We did the new interim Beatles routine playing “8 Days a Week” in A then into “Can’t Buy Me Love” with me double tracking Nige. I thought this went very well, we played it with a bounce, Nige sang it passionately and it got a warm round of applause. Hopefully next time out we’ll add “All My Lovin”. As the set progressed, we managed to get some rock’n’roll in and that filled the dance floor so we extended it with ”Shake Rattle and Roll” and then drifted into “Blue Suede Shoes”. Only snag was Dave couldn’t find the words, so I had a go but couldn’t remember them, so Nige stepped in – and he could. So thanks to Nige we could finish the piece in good order. Finished off the set with “I Believe” getting a good round of applause. Had a good chat with Michele in the break; she was all aglow from “twitching” at Wells. Dan is doing fine and was probably rehearsing with his US band at that very moment. We got changed into the white and went on to do set 2. Started off with the Searchers medley and I elected to stay on 12 string through the Eagles medley and “Do It Again”, it seemed to work and with a bit more adjustment to the sound I might continue that in future. We started up “Alice” and got a great response from the crowd. Quite a few started dancing at that point and they carried on dancing through the “Moon of Love Medley” and “Halfway”. Then we stopped to do Elvis, with Nige and I "CC Rider" rifing on A to bring Dave on to do “The Wonder of You”. We played this well and Dave sang it really well, and we got a great round of applause for it. Carried on into “Sweet Caroline” which had them all singing and dancing and we finished off with “Love is all Around”. I set up my old Shure SM58 for the governor to do the raffle and he announced us back on for set 3 in very effusive terms (i.e. he said we were a great band). Started off with “500 Miles” and ran through to “Hi Ho” but by 11:30pm it was thinning out a bit. So we did a bit of a hurried “Spencer Davis” medley and wrapped up with “Pretty Woman”; that went really well with a lot of shouts for more so we encored with “Wonderful Tonight”. Had a chat with Steve Lemmon who had turned up after work. I congratulated him on his imminent move to Saffron Waldron. He said the band sounded good and our showmanship was a big contrast to Kenny and the Hustlers who were performing across the road at the Tyneside. All in all it had been a very good gig for the band. I got off fairly quick, Dave and Nige were going to see Marty up at Woodlands, he was playing an hour later ‘cos of the clocks changing. I drove home in good time in a gusty wind getting in about 2am. On the Sunday Jacqui and I took some time out to visit a quilting show at Feltwell then have lunch and a walk at Wells.

Practice at Skeyton

Just beat Dave to the hall at 4:50pm, so we set up slowly and ran through a couple of Shadows numbers whilst I set my Roland GT 10 up a bit more. When Nige arrived and set up we were just ready for the off when in came Mark James to view the Bose gear. Nige had had chips and somehow had drenched his jeans but otherwise he was on good form and seems to have overcome his recent bloat. Did a warm up with “Travel Lodge”, the GT-10 solo setting was way down so I tinkered with that and we did the solo again OK. Then we ran through the Hollies Medley with Dave singing the lower harmony on “Bus Stop” nicely. Mark said it sounded great for a three piece and was suitably impressed with the Bose. Sorted out “3 times a Lady” and played through “The Wonder of You” a few times, and decided to use the same ending for “Unchained”. Did a quick run through “Twist and Shout” in case we get requested end with 9th run ups to finish on A9. Steve and Laura and another of Dave’s drummer mates (Ray) arrived as we started working on the new Beatles medley. Couple of chord fixes in “8 Days” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” and this medley is taking shape well. Spent a longish time on “Shine”, I still have trouble with this but its close to being performable. Wrapped up with “How Long” and the “Wonder of You”. Had a good run home on a rainy night getting in about 11:45pm.

Trimingham Caravan Park

Second night in a row; I had a little sleep in the afternoon and set off just before 5:20 pm making good time via Thetford to Trimingham arriving spot on 7pm. Dave arrived 1 minute later and Nige rolled in 5 mins later. Dave and Nige handed over the paperwork and photo’s for the me to process for the showcase, then Andy showed up with the card key for us to get on site. Poor Dave had no roadie so had to unload and set up himself. We soon had the gear in and set up was going OK until I looked round and saw poor Nige in a tiz ‘cos on stage set up wasn’t working and he didn’t fancy off-stage set up. He has been suffering from unexplained bloat for a few weeks now and when he doubles up it is painful and affects his breathing - Dave and I keep suggesting Doctors but he says he had a good going over for the emphysema so we don’t know what? But we got him set up in the end. I set up my MP3 to give Nige a break and I had time for a little test of my new Roland GT-10 and it sounded very good – a bit Fendery in fact. I made a few volume adjustments on the fly and then it was time to go with Set 1 in the pink. Jenny and Laura had arrived by then and I was surprised to look round and see the hall was quite busy – it turned out there was a large group celebrating Nathan’s 18th birthday; but plenty of others populating the hall and bar as well. The usual start went well but Dave was a little too quick into the banter, but once again we had a good on-stage sound. With a lively crowd we were getting some good applause and when we got to the Shadows, Dave went out and got a small group to come and do the Shadows walk with the blow up guitars. In the meantime Nige and I were jamming in Am to keep something going – it eventually turned into a very laid back version of “Black Magic Woman”. While I was out front I could hear the guitar sound well and it is much better in sound and responsiveness than the Korg pedal, I might need to wind down some of the treble though? Got back on with the show and switched to 12 string after “Only You” while Nige entertained the crowd with his baby ghost routine – well I found it very amusing. The 12 string sounded too trebly through the Roland so I’ll have to set up a 12 string bank to boost the signal and cut the top. We bashed on through the Hollies and Beatles but Dave and I were getting a touch of sore throat at this point so we finished with “I Believe”. Had a longish break and restarted with the Searchers and then we did a happy birthday for Nathan ; did we remember the birthday hat? - I don’t think so. We followed on with the usual set 2 up to Elvis when we did a reasonable attempt of “The Wonder of You”, until I forgot the ending. Dave’s rough throat meant that Nige was volunteered to sing “Shang-a-lang” and, once again, the Bay City sequence brought out the dancers in force. We wrapped up with a good performance of “Love is All Around”. Took another longish break then we were back on with “500 Miles” through to “All Right Now” which brought out some increasingly boozy dancing. Then we slowed up to do “Unchained” before rocking on with a well paced Spencer Davis sequence. It was at this point that Nathan and his young mates started dancing very unsteadily and we got fearful that they might collide with the gear. Fortunately Jenny stepped up and barred their way to my Bose and Nige did the same to bar access to his. We got through “Pretty Woman” intact and encored with a cut down version of “Wonderful Tonight”. The youths didn’t mean any harm but they were well out of it! So not a bad night and Andy should have made a profit! Nige and I talked about using conventional gear next time we are there – not a bad idea, we need to be able to do that from time to time. We got packed up efficiently with help from Jenny and Laura and I was on the road for 1am, getting in after a fast run at 2:30am. Felt a bit sniffy the next day, so had the day off work on the Monday to sort out the Foot Tappers PR for the showcase.

Oasis Club California Sands Scratby

Set off in good time but soon started to run into Friday afternoon traffic, which slowed me down getting to the A11, but once on it I made good time to Acle. Here I made the mistake of taking the A47 to Yarmouth rather than the Caister cut. Bad mistake ‘cos after a couple of miles I ran into a 8 mile tailback into Great Yarmouth (due to bridge work and an accident on the A12). It took about 40 minutes to get into Yarmouth and get on the Caister road. I had been in touch with Dave and warned them I wouldn’t be there ‘til 7pm. Although I made good progress through Caister and, you can see the lights of the Oasis club from miles away, I missed the California Road turn and had to come back. So it was just before 7 when I actually arrived. Nigel kindly gave me a lift in with the gear and working at it diligently I was all set up by 8pm – just in time to watch the large screen presentation of a death scene in Coronation Street. Andy the DJ said he would keep thing’s going ‘til 9pm so we had a bit of a sit down with a beer. It was a cold night and not many in and Dave was still a bit croaky. We elected to wear the black shirts and red ties which gave me a bit of warmth. Went on to do set 1, pretty much as written to finish with the Beatles. It was a bit of nervy start, but by the time we got to The Everleys, we were generating a solid sound. I thought the on-stage sound was very good, but there was a hint of hi feedback from my Bose. I eventually fixed it in Set 2. Surprisingly, we got a good response from the 30 or so people in this big hall, but I was a bit nervy on guitar and Dave was a bit nervy on announcements. Nevertheless we agreed it was a good performance overall and the banter had been good for this venue. We came off for 40 minutes or so while Andy did a quiz. Then we went back on starting with the usual set 2 listing, opening with the Searchers. I was taken by surprise at the count in and it took me a few bars to get into it but we got a good response from the dwindling audience. Dave wisely cut out the Moon of Love Medley and we had a good, entertaining “Halfway – Elvis – Neil Diamond” sequence. The Bay City medley was next and although it went down well, we remain a bit confused on it. (Nige suggests we shorten it and pad out with some Sweet songs). I called “500 Miles” next and we followed up with Amarillo which had them dancing in their seats and “Hey Baby” which we eventually got them to sing along to. Andy asked us to help him out by doing “Nelly the Elephant” as a special request for a some folks who had stayed all night so we busked a verse or two. Then we did a good rendition of “Love is All Around” before finishing with “Pretty Woman”. Overall a nervey night but I thought the sound and vocals was good, and so it proved. Everyone complimented us on the sound, the great harmonies and the way we had thrown ourselves into entertaining such a small audience. Sandra (the promoter) was very keen on booking us back. So we packed up feeling good about the gig. It was cold but not freezing as we loaded up. I made a quick departure for my run back through the Acle cut and made good time home – in bed by 1:30am