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

Tyneside Sheringham

Lovely weather for a drive over to the Norfolk coast. Had a good run over, hardly any traffic and I arrived about 6:20 at the gig. It turned out the roads were quiet because England were playing Kasakstan and beat them 5-1! I had most of my gear in by the time Nigel arrived with Dave and Jen rolling up shortly after. I had integrated a Rolls RMX 603 Line mixer with the reverb to give control over what PA sounds went where. It is set up so I get a bit of Nigel and Dave’s’ vocals in my Bose and vice versa. The synth and radio mic (if we set it up) are routed into both Bose equally to centre the sound. Testing it out it all worked fine; although the nature of the Bose dispersion is so good that it doesn’t make that much difference to the on stage sound because we can hear each other’s Bose well anyway. But from an audience point of view sounds like the synth strings now appear to come from the centre back of the band. I have a final adjustment to do on the reverb to remove a small amount of dry pass through, but I thought I’d do that at home. Also I had used the Bose parametric equaliser to take a lot of the sound below 60hz off the guitar to reduce the boomyness at G that we had experienced last time at this gig. Because of all the change, we elected to do a quick sound check with a section of “Here I Go Again”. Nige took himself out front a bit and reported that it all sounded fine. Dave still has a bad throat so warned us he might need to bottle out on some songs and Nige was suffering from a bit of bloat so he wouldn’t be rushing around. We took a break for a water and lime (preceded by a beer) and we were let into the dressing room. This had been locked because it was full of bridal dresses for a display the next day. The girl who unlocked the room took one look at the band and said in no uncertain terms “no trying these dresses on boys” – as if we would! Jenny’s sister and husband Alan arrived (Alan is a great pedal steel player but currently plays guitar in his own rock and roll trio). One of Nigel’s music contacts, Clive, showed up to see the band with a view to putting some bookings our way. Also Tabby a female singer friend of Nige had arrived to support the band and get his advice on a prospective band she was going to join. We elected to wear pink and the room was filling up nicely so off we went into set 1 at about 8:20pm. Dave was a bit nervy but we got off to a generally good start with a good on-stage sound. However, by the time we got to “Heartbeat” I realised I had forgotten the words. Unbelievable after all the years I have played it – it’s probably a combination of being out with the Checkmates the week before and general brain degeneration. Somehow I fudged it through, but it rattled me a bit. Carrying on we generally followed the set list and the guitar changes OK; but this week (whilst I remembered Cliff), I forgot to call a slowey. Still we got an encouragingly good response from the Tyneside crowd for pretty much everything we did – warts and all. Highlights included an interesting bunch of people up and dancing the Shadows walk with the blow up guitars and, despite a bit of a false start, I thought “How Long” went well. We even had a few dancers going in some of the numbers. We played through to finish with “I Believe” and Dave’s voice just held up just enough to complete it. Despite my misgivings on the nerves, feedback from people was good and Clive seemed very open to using the band; in fact he elected to stay through most of set 2 which he didn’t need to! We started up set 2 in the white shirts kicking off with the Searchers medley. I was going to continue with the 12 string through the Eagles and “Do It Again”, but I wasn’t too happy with the sound on the night and switched back to 6 string. Another brain cell had gone ‘cos I couldn’t play one little riff in “Lying Eyes” right, but I thought we sang it OK. After “Alice” and “Under the Moon of Love”, Dave made a good call to miss out “Beautiful Sunday and “Yellow River” and we got into “Halfway” and “Sweet Caroline” which went well before he did the Elvis bit. That left us some time to do the “Bay City Rollers” and “Crazy Little Thing” which both went well with this audience, before we finished with “Shake Rattle and Roll” and “Love is all Around”. By the time we got on for set 3 we only had about 30 minutes to do so we opened up with a request for “Can’t Get Enough” only marred by my forgetting the solo and having to improvise a bit – but it went down well. Then we rattled through the party dance to “Locomotion” getting a bit of dance interest at times. We tried out the Spencer Davis pair a bit slower and got the best result yet in my opinion. even though Nige had to take over from Dave in “Keep On Running as his voice gave out. We finished off with “Pretty Woman” with Dave saying goodbye from the band and, due to the thunderous applause from the 20 or so left, we went back on to encore with “Wonderful Tonight”. The management seemed pleased and I thought we had had a good night overall; Nige had been very steady and made up for mine and Dave’s nervy errors and coughing fits. It was a bit chilly out as we loaded up and I ran into some fog patches on the way back, but I made good time getting in at 1:45 am; the next day we had a lovely sunny Sunday with temperatures up to 23 degrees in the afternoon, went for a walk by the river at West Stow.

King Edward Hall Lindfield Sussex

Another reunion night with the Checkmates. Jacqui and I ran down early Saturday so we could spend some time with old friends and neighbours Jenny and Miles. They were kind enough to treat us to lunch and drink so the afternoon soon whizzed by. We checked in the Birch Hotel at 4pm and had a little doze before I set off for the gig at 5 ish. Met up with Raye at the hall and he had already set his kit up earlier in the day. I was using the old Checkmates PA with the EVSX300s and my Mesa Lonestar (heavier gear than the Foot Tapper’s Bose’s) and I was in the middle of unloading when Graham rolled up with his boy Adam who was assisting as road / stage manager for the night. Got set up without incident and I was pleased to see everything worked except Raye’s mic which needed a bit of attention to the connector. I adjusted the PA a bit to bring down some of the boomy bottom, the usual story - boomy on stage but fine out front. Then we did a bit of a sound check / rehearsal for half an hour. We remembered most of the Checkmates songs quite well, but a few of the more complex other songs (e.g. FBI, American Trilogy) needed a bit of discussion. Adam thought the balance was a bit vocal heavy, but I had already decided to use the Mesa on its high voltage setting when the hall filled up and I knew that would take care of the guitar sound. Graham had plenty of “uuumph “ left in his Trace Elliot – so we were set to go. Richard (Raye’s biographer) arrived and we all had time for brief chat before the ladies arrived in a taxi about 7:30pm. Then it was get the beers in and get ready for the show. Got on to play about 8:30pm and things went generally smoothly musically - the odd forgotten arrangement or wrong tempo but nothing fatal! But we got a great response for just about everything we did but especially Apache (with the Shadows walk) and “Wipe Out” for which Raye brought up one of his jazz drummer mates to ably assist - it brought the house down. In the break Adam advised that the sound was good and the reaction we got from many folks we knew was also great. Going back on we did the most of the Checkmates hits and “Let There Be Drums” which finished with Carol (one of the organisers) who was dressed up as a nurse with a massive syringe, reviving. Raye after his exertions! Well he got a hell of a response to that with a long standing ovation. When we got going again we did a bit of dancey stuff and finished off the night with “Lucky Old Sun” to another standing ovation, so we encored with “Early in the Morning” with Raye coming out front and just playing snare drum and cymbal. We could have played on, but the hall had to be closed by 1am, so we took a final bow and left the stage happy but exhausted. Took a while to get packed up and Raye was well tired out. Adam did sterling work helping to pack up and move the gear. I was very impressed with Adam’s help throughout the night and I wasn’t surprised to hear that he was planning to do a course on sound engineering and he had had quite a bit of experience stage managing the local Battle of the Bands competitions. We were out the hall by 12:30am. It was raining hard by the time we had a farewell group hug. Jacqui and I were soon back at the hotel so we had a drink before turning in. I think it was the last drink which didn’t agree with J ‘cos she was a bit off colour the next day. Drove back to Bury in rain most the way.

Photo Shoot Cromer

We met up for a photo shoot with Eric in Cromer in the afternoon. He worked very patiently with us and took about 30 shots, early views are very promising and no doubt Nige will work some magic on them for the web site and general marketing collateral. Dave clearly very unwell on the day but he posed gamely and looked fine on the early rushes.