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.