Practice at Skeyton

Set off in Spring like conditions in good time, but I heard on the radio that there was a problem on boundary road Norwich, so I diverted through the wilderness of Ringland to take a ‘short cut” through the cart tracks and closed roads in that area. Hard going but I missed the jam and got to the hall in good time to meet up with Dave. We sorted out a few presentation issues before Nige arrived and then we got down to work. Started off by going over the count in on the “Wonder of You” and decided that Dave as ‘Elvis the drummer’ would join in on CC Rider Intro, make a sudden stop then count ‘one’ into “The Wonder”. Then we spent some time on the Beatle medley transition between “All My Lovin” into “I Feel Fine”. Dave and Nige to stop while I transit into “I Feel Fine” riff. I mentioned that I would like to revisit this medley to finish with something more well known like “She Loves You”. Then we played through: Hotel California, Hollies, Shine a few times (Dave to sing low on the verses and chorus, but to sing above me on the Coda), Can’t Get Enough – remember the accents on the chorus! Midnight Hour (Slowish please), Saw Her Standing There (Nige to sing Lead, Mog Hi Line and Dave a low line), Spencer Davis a bit slower and Peggy Sue – now in key of A!

Then we spent some time on Dave’s suggestion of “The Girl of my Best Friend” Nige Low and Mog Hi Jordinaire Backing. That went well. It is rather laid back so we thought we might risk that on the next gig in place of “Good Luck Charm”

We started work on “What Do You Wanna Make Those Eyes” Mog Vocal – Nige Lo and Dave Hi on backing vocals; the idea is to make some bull of my past with Checkmates.

In the interests of variety, I’d suggested we rest the current Everly Brothers pair and use “Cathy’s Clown into Bye Bye Love” instead – try out at next gig. Finally Nige and I reviewed "Hippie Hippie Shake" Nige's vocal Key of B but starts on E

I had a fast trip back getting in about midnight on a drizzly night.

Wensum Community Centre

A mild sunny day, but it was getting chilly as I set off at 5:20pm. There was hardly any traffic through Thetford and I was well ahead of schedule as I hit the A11. Despite making a slow paced run over to Norwich I arrived at the gig at 6:25pm well ahead of schedule. The place was closed so I sat in the car ‘til Nige arrived 10 mins later and Dave / Jen a bit later (just as the guvnor arrived). It’s a squareish hall with a medium sized boxy stage with just enough height for the Bose. Soon got set up and Dave added a row of lights at the back to give some atmosphere. The room filled up rapidly and there were a number of people who had made the trip from NWMC just to see the band (even though we are playing there next week). Fiddled with the sound to reduce top on the mic a bit because we were getting some slap back from a pelmet around the front of the stage. My ear is a little better, but I still can’t hear clearly. Nige put on his 60’s music selection (it even includes a Tiny Tim track) and we had a welcome beer before getting changed into the smart white shirts with black ties and waistcoats. We opened up with “Foot Tapper” as usual and Dave did a bit of band intro at the end. Then we played through the set pretty much as listed. Duh! I got the chords the wrong way round in the middle 8 of “Peggy Sue” but Nige put me right at the end. Through the set the audience applauded enthusiastically and the banter went well; but not much dancing ‘cos kids were scooting around the dance floor. In fact we assembled 3 of the kids (2 girls and a boy) to do the Shadows walk and a fine job they did too, getting thunderous applause at the end! We carried on through the Seasons, the Hollies, the Beatles and a good performance of “How Long” considering ‘how long’ it was we hadn’t played it. Then some rock’n’roll to the finish with “I Believe”, we played about an hour and a quarter in total. I was very thirsty as we came off and dashed off to the bar to get water ‘n lime – didn’t touch the sides! In the meantime Dave and Nige worked the room and then we changed into the ‘Hari Kari’ shirts to open set 2 with the Searchers. Again all went very well. Dave made a good call to curtail the 70’s dance sequence because the floor was still full of children despite the management’s pronouncements for them to be controlled! We did a great Elvis but still need to find a way of slicking the entry up a bit. As we opened up with “Sweet Caroline” the dance floor filled and stayed full as we played through the Bay Cities ending it to a lot of surprisingly warm and genuine applause. As we wrapped up with “Love is All Around” in comes Laura with her mother Valisha and some young friends. But all was matey as Dave gently entertained most of the women in his life during the break! The Govner came over and said we were great, but there was a problem with some folk at the back not hearing some of the spoken banter. I checked with Jenny and she said it all sounded good but felt it might have been Dave’s rushed delivery on some of the announcements. Something for us all to work on: – to speak slowly, clearly and with projection. To be fair the Guvnor also complimented me on my clarity and lack of accent so maybe it was someone’s hearing aid not turned up! Nige got changed into the velcroized kilt for a 45 minute set 3 (it needs a small adjustment to cater for his svelte waist Jacqui!). We opened up with a 'Nigel Wheres Yor Troosers' version of "500 Miles". That got them laughing and then they all got up to dance to "Amarillo" and we kept the dance floor filled right through to “All Right Now”. We followed up with a short version of “Unchained” and then did “American Trilogy” to a great reception. The guvnor came up at that point and requested “Roll Over Beethoven” which Nige obligingly sang and, as it was going well with the dancers, we carried on into “Jonny B Goode” and “Great Balls of Fire”. Then it was time to finish off with “Pretty Woman”. We got such a huge response that I called for two encores. I made a bad call suggesting “Bad Moon Rising”. It wasn’t in Dave’s book so we all had to have a go at improvising a verse. It would have been better to go with Nigel’s belated suggestion of “Saw Her Standing There”. Still we got another round of shouts for ‘More’ so we duly obliged with “Wonderful Tonight”, ending to a really warm reception from the big crowd who had stayed ‘til the end. It had been another really successful night for the band and the guvnor set about rebooking us straight away. Load up was interesting in that Dave was giving some of the NWMC women a lift home so the van looked like it was full of groupies. Even more so when his ex and present wives appeared on the scene. Good run home getting back for 1am.


Groupies in the Van ----- and Groupies, daughter and Wives getting in Van!!

Hellesdon Community Centre 70’s celebration

Left at 11:20am for an afternoon gig starting at 2pm. Had a slow run over with bad traffic in Thetford but arrived at the hall at just after 12:30pm in pleasant sunny mild weather. I had a nose round and found the janitor who directed me to the event room (not the main hall) and explained the best load in route. Just then, in comes Tina the organiser, followed shortly by Nige. We had a bit of discussion about placing the band but eventually reverted to plan B along the long wall. In view of the likely crowded nature of the event, I decided not to use the 12 string again and that turned out to be a good decision.

Dave texted to say he was held up in traffic and Nige’s mate Marty texted to say he’d just seen him in North Walsham!!! We carried on set up and when Dave rolled up we gave him a hand in. I tried out the Creative MP3 on background music but it hadn’t loaded the play list properly so I reverted to the trusty MP3 man. In the meantime Tina had changed into a fantastic 70’s glam dress. We were also pleased to see Dorothy from Bure Valley arrive beautifully dressed like a 70’s hippy – complete with pearl beads! The other lady organisers also looked suitably glamed up. Our elderly audience were gathering (and my ear was playing up anyway) so there was no time for a sound check. We cracked on and found a changing room and changed into the white kamikaze shirts and headed back for a 5 minute late start. I noticed Dave’s mate Bobby Graham had arrived to support the band. We opened up with Foot Tapper and got a great reception as we played through a selection of regular set 1 songs, the 50’s medley, some country (including a very improvised “Travellin Light”), The Beatles and the Shadows Walk with 3 of the ladies up and dancing with the rubber guitars. It went really well. The banter was going exceptionally well and we wrapped up with “I Believe” so that Dave could judge the best 70’s outfit - but I made sure we complimented the organisers on their great turn out first! Dave did a first class job of judging – a bit like Larry Grayson’s generation game ;-)



The meals were served and we got back on for a long set 2 where again we picked and mixed our way through the usual set 2 repertoire with added “Beautiful Body”, “Walk Don’t Wipe Out” and a well paced “Blue Suede Shoes”. The room was getting a bit hot by the end so we changed into our black shirts / white ties for the final set. This was only going to be about 30 minutes 'cos the buses had arrived to ship the audience out. Because Nige has to remove his shoes to get into the kilt, I elected to wear it for the start with “500 Miles” and the routine went down very well as I came on to dance to “Moggy Wheres Your Troosers”. Trouble was I couldn’t get my ‘troosers’ unrolled after and I was interfered with by two ladies who sorted my trouser legs out! On we went with the party dance sequence stopping after a great “Locomotion” with a conga line moving round the hall. After this the room was emptying rapidly as the crowd was ushered out to the buses. Lots of people came up to thank us personally on their way out and we sold several CD’s. We finished off playing Pretty Woman to the last few stragglers and then called it a day. We all agreed it had been a very successful gig with brilliant banter, well played music and a great atmosphere. It had just started raining as we packed up. I had a good run back getting in about 7:30pm and handed the kilt over the Jacqui for velcroizing.

Christine (nee Cox) Wedding at Tyneside Sheringham

I had developed a blocked ear in the week, but was hoping it would not affect performance too much. Dave was still suffering the remnants of his cold and Nigel had a chest infection so it was going to be an ‘interesting’ vocal performance! Had a lazy run over, not much traffic, so arrived just before 6:30 to find another band, Young at Heart, playing there. Double booking I thought, but I went in and Christine met me and explained the other band would finish in a few minutes. So I had a half of lager and waited. Meanwhile, unbeknown to me, Nigel had rolled up, worked out what was happening and popped over to the Social Club to see Marty. Dave arrived with Jen and Laura on board just as ‘Young at Heart’ were packing up, so it was out with the old and in with the new (or not quite as old). Set up went smoothly and I remembered to adjust guitar EQ to compensate for the 500hz boom in the hall. I also took a bit of top off the Audix mic setting (I might do that permanently because I always seem to be on the edge of an 8khz feedback whistle at most gigs. Finally I increased the analogue return from the reverb into my Bose just a tad to give a bit of lift to the vocals. We can’t work the lights out at this gig so we set our small lights up at the back of the band to give light on stage and silhouette the band. Nige, who had replaced the jack socket on his Hofner in the week, did a bit of fiddling with the bass sound through his Bose. I was over near Jen having a gulp of lager and it sounded great – “meaty sound” I said! There were still quite a few people in the hall so we decided (again) not to bother with a soundcheck and adjourned for a beer. There were about 50 in as we got changed into the white’n’black outfits and emerged for an 8:30 start. We agreed to open up with “3 Times a Lady” to get Christine and Glenn to lead off the dancing and that went well. Then, deciding to keep it simple, we just played through the usual set 1 for an hour with added slowies and deferred Shadows walk (we got Christine and the girls up to do the walk). Also early on in the set we did “Halfway”, with a guest singer from Christine’s entourage doing a romantic version singing to his woman. Although my ear was pretty bad for hearing what we were doing and Dave was struggling a bit with the splutters, we were going down well and later Jen confirmed the band and the harmonies sounded good. Even with a bad ear, the bass sounded nice and full to me and I found I could ease back on some of the guitar playing. Nige felt the band was gelling together better as well; and we both noticed Dave was holding the beat steadier in some of the more complex pieces (eg Hollies and Beatles). After a round of waters we resumed for a standard set 2 just adding “American Trilogy” after “Wonder of You”. We had lots of dancing going in this set from the “Moon of Love” medley through Elvis and the Bay Cities filling the floor most the way. Unfortunately it was a bit of over enthusiastic dancing that led one of the girls to slide into Nigel and his new bass. Nige examined the bass in the break and found the force of the impact had knocked a couple of strings off their bridge saddles!!! But otherwise the guitar was fine (Phweew). By the time we opened up with Set 3 we only had about 35 minutes to go, so we did the usual party dance sequence curtailing it after “Locomotion” to go into the longer version of “Unchained” and then finished with “Pretty Woman”. We got a great response with many shouting for more, so we did the planned encore of “Wonderful Tonight” and still they wanted more. Dave got the OK from the guvnor and we encored with “Great Balls”. Good night considering our combined state of health. Got packed and loaded up quick with help from Nigel and Laura and had an uneventful run back getting in at 2am. Been to the Doc’s since and I’m treating the ear with steam and albus oil.

Kessingland Community Centre – Wine Club Presentation Night

The boys had played Gressenhall Social on 10/1/09 while I was away on my month long trip to New Zealand, but this was to be my first gig in the New Year. Nige had given a detailed brief on the gig and I had put a bit of home practice in during the week so I was feeling quite relaxed as I set off at 5:20pm. At 2c the weather was milder that it had been and I made good progress to Lowestoft where I picked up the A12 Southbound. I came off at the first roundabout for Kessingland which eventually brought me out near the Social Club where I saw Dave’s van. So I turned round and tucked in behind. Dave soon stopped to ask the way, stopping a passerby who happened to be John from the Social Club! A few minutes later we were parked up at the Community Centre waiting for someone to come and open up. Nige arrived soon after he texted to say he would be late? And he was followed closely by Len (one of the organisers) to open the doors. It’s a big hall and the stage is at the far end. We got the gear down the hall on some big table trolleys we found near the entrance. The stage is quite high and slightly raked and it was quite a heave to get the gear up. Meanwhile Jen had bagged the warmest side room for the band to change. There is plenty of room on stage and set up went well. We had been asked to provide stage lights and Dave had brought the old lights (from Dan’s shed); we soon got them working on separate extension leads. Then Nige opened his guitar case to reveal a stunning brand new Hofner Beatle bass complete with custom headstock warmer courtesy of Jacqui! It looks great with a subtle soft brown to off white sunburst finish. He immediately ran into a little snag by jarring the jack socket on the guitar stand (before the arms were bent to fit the guitar. The resultant crackly connection meant that he had to change to a Planet Waves lead for the night and would have to take the socket apart to adjust – oh dear! The hall was filling up so no time for a soundcheck. I put on my improved MP3 music programme using a spare input into the Rolls mixer to route to both Bose and we retired for a chat. There was no bar so we were dependent on the generosity of Len for a bottle of pear wine and some Murray Mint cordial. I was pleased to hand out holiday acquired Creative Zen Mozaic MP3 players as presents for the boys: the plan being Nige and I would program them up to contain the original Artiste recordings of songs we were doing or were learning so we had no excuse for not getting it right (other than incompetence in my case) - Nige got the job of immediately taking Dave’s away to set it up! Then Nige distributed some really well produced group cards with little photo’s on. We got dressed up in the black ‘n’ white to make a prompt 8:30 start. After “Foot Tapper” we departed the usual running order to do a couple of Jim Reeves waltzs and the old 50’s medley to cater for the oldies. Things we going well so we decided to resume the usual set 1 with “Just One Look” and here we ran into trouble, ‘cos Dave had picked up a cold and his singing became badly interrupted by coughing fits. Somehow we got through that and the next few songs with Nige and myself dipping in to take over Dave’s vocals each time he petered out. At this point I elected to do “Sleepwalk” to give Dave time to collect himself, but he was still full of coughs and splutters at then end. Also we had a pronounced resonance on stage at about 400hz (A) which was off putting. We did a few more numbers culminating in a successful audience participation Shadows walk using a very long guitar lead, but I got the guitar sound wrong again somehow? Then as we finished the set off with “Only You” I had plugged the wrong guitar lead in, so no guitar for the first few lines. Although we were going down well we had been plagued with problems right through this relatively short 40 minute set, but we kept calm! Nigel’s new bass had sounded good my side – the string balance was great and there was a nice slightly woody tone to it. During the break for prize giving Nige got Dave to medicate his throat and we strode forth more confidently to open up Set 2 with the Searchers. This got a lot of people up and dancing so we carried on with “Do It Again” and the Eagles before slowing things up with “Three Times a Lady”. We opened up some bantering with “Alice” and followed up a few songs later with “Halfway” where, as usual, I asked the boys to do girly answer backs in the middle 8. Now Nige has taken to do a gruff comedy second line response in recent gigs, so this time when he did it I stopped the song and insisted he wear a girly wig to get it right – it got a laugh and I thought it worked quite well! Then I joined Nige by donning a girly wig myself as we became the Jordinettes to back the mystery ‘guest artiste’! It took Dave an age to get changed so I’ll be looking to slick this up in the future. We played on with “Caroline”, the Bay City’s, a request for “Sweet Caroline” (which Nige sang well) and some Rock ‘n’ Roll to finish to a great response with “Love is All Around” at about 11pm. While we took a break they ran the raffle. The medication seemed to have done the trick with Dave’s voice, but my voice was in serious decline from lack of performance. Still we only had 30 minutes to do as we opened up set 3 with the usual party dance sequence. By the time we got to “Hi Ho” it was time to wrap up the set with “Unchained” and “Pretty Woman”, encoring with “Wonderful Tonight”. Considering the slightly raggy performance we were surprised and delighted to get a standing ovation from a crowd that had really enjoyed the show. The organisers were well pleased and as we packed up Dave was negotiating a re-booking. Even though I wasn’t ‘match fit’, we had the gear packed up and in the cars by 12:45am. I dropped Len off nearby as I set off homeward. It was an uneventful drive on a fullish moon lit night getting in just after 2am, tired but pleased to be ‘back in the saddle’.