ReTrio + Abbie at Lawshall Village Hall - Macmillan Charity Dance

We had agreed to meet at the 'Macebearer' car park at 4:40pm with Chris the drum tasked to lead us to this charity dance at Lawshall Village Hall.  It was a nice warm day and we met up on time.  Chris the drum was accompanied by an injured Trudy.  She had had a fall in the week and exacerbated a knee injury so she was toting crutches!  We headed south towards Sudbury and then west into the country.  It seemed to take ages to find Lawshall itself,  but we were heartened by signs up in the village promoting the dance and eventually rolled up to a deserted village hall a couple of minutes late.  We were just setting up a call to see when we would be let in when a car arrived with the daughter and granddaughter of Jeanette (the promoter) and they soon had the doors open for an easy load in to the adjacent stage.  Its a fairly high stage and,  once cleared of kids playthings, there was plenty of room for the band to set up.  I could see the stage area would act as a box with curtains absorbing sound at the edge;  which usually makes for a loud sound on stage but weak out front.  But I decided to put the Bose at the back anyway and see how it went.  We soon had the gear set up and running. I left the mix pretty much as per the previous gig.  On my side I actually had a good bit of room to perform in but our set up had crowded Chris the bass's side of the stage a little.  However,  we did manage to fit Abbie's mic in amongst all the lights on Chris's side - so we were all set for a sound check. Just then Jacqui arrived with Bridget and Abbie (and Abbie's brother Lewis) - so now we could get on with the sound check proper;  which went surprisingly well.    The box effects weren't too bad and despite the limited line of sight from the Bose on Chris's side the sound out front was reported as good. I put the background musak on about 15 minutes ahead of schedule and looked round.  Wow - the hall was filling up already!  Time for me to get the beers in for charity?  We had a room to the back of the kitchen to get changed.  With it being warm we dropped the ties and got ready to open in our usual white shirts and waistcoats. At 8:30 we took to the stage to open with our usual sequence. 

All sounded fine and we were getting a good response from the off.  We even had some dancing going as we got into rock'n'roll mid way through the set. 

We finished with a really good audience response to the two Tom Jones numbers: "Delilah and Green Grass",  so we were happy and relaxed for once as we left the stage to replenish our glasses.  Fifteen minutes off then we changed to the red shirts for the second set and opened with a request for "Apache",  I couldn't get off the stage to do the 'walk' but the chap who asked for it (and his mates) was most appreciative anyway.   We carried on with "Eight Days a Week and Walk In the Room"  which went really well. 

 I was very happy with my guitar sound and quite happy with my vocal sound so all was building well.  I called for "Mr Tambourine Man" as another 60's number to do before we brought Abbie on.  Unfortunately, Chris the bass lost his way in his music book and I had to start without him.  He eventually gave up looking and tried to play from memory with mixed success - oh dear!  But the audience didn't seem to mind:  they got up and danced and gave it a good round of applause (I just love country village dances!)   I looked round to see Abbie was ready.  She had alternative stage wear on tonight:  a black dress with a denimy embroidered jacket - looking good!  We had agreed to play Abbie on with "Wildwood Flower".  Starting it fast playing through a few bars and then slowing down as she came to the mic. Then I go straight into the opening riff of "Good Girls Gonna Go Bad"  On the night it worked really well and we were soon rattling through Abbie's mini set of 5 numbers. She got a great reception and I got in a good banter line about the audience must be very familiar with country roads so we would finish with "Country Roads" dedicated to tractors and single track roads everywhere - or something like that!  We played Abbie off with "Wildwood Flower" as well;  although Chris the bass had to remind me!  Then us boys in ReTrio carried on with our second set getting a good response and increasing dancing for pretty much everything we did. As we were close to time for the raffle I chose to finish with "Do You Wanna Dance" on this occasion.  After the raffle we only had about half an hour to play.  During the break Chris the bass had asked if Abbie's brother Lewis could come up and sing "Achey Breakey Heart".  "Yes" I said "we will open with it!"   I got it started on guitar and Chris bass was busy prompting Lewis so it took a while to get the rest of the band going. Although he didn't know too many verses, Lewis did a good job singin it.  I was able to work in some good harmonies with the harmoniser;  and it went down great with the crowd who were amazed to see live karaoke on display.  I just picked and mixed the next few numbers;  the crowd were dancing and singing along and even we in the band were having a great time.  I called "Hi Ho" as our last number and we had a lot of shouts for more,  so we were set to finish with "Johnny B Goode"  This night I asked Abbie to come up and sing it with us.  I did the first verse then she took over and it went really well. She can sing quite low for a girl and the key of A was just fine. Our solos and outroductions are still a bit ragged but we are getting better.  We finished on a high on this night - a good job well done chaps!  Pack up took a while as we dealt with a few enquiries (hopefully these will turn into bookings);  but we were on the way home by midnight getting in about halfpast feeling well satisfied with the best performance so far with this band.

ReTrio + Abbie at Sugar Beet Factory Social Club

We had been booked to play a caravan rally social night;  they were parked in the grounds of the Sugar Factory Social Club.  I drove the quarter of a mile or so over to the club at just after 6pm to find Chris's the drum & bass already there with the side load in doors open.  I surprised to see a stage there and even more surprised to see a hi-tech back drop behind the stage.  It is a big room and there were lots of tables set out either side slightly swept back and leaving a big area in the middle for dancing.  Setting up the gear up was straightforward physically,  but it took me a while to get the Mackie mixer back to my normal settings after Nicks foray the previous week. Set up also took a bit longer 'cos Nick had kindly unplugged many of the leads I normally leave plugged into the devices to save time - but 'hey ho' it exercises the connections (and the brain).   I had decided to stick to my Shure Beta 58 for this gig,  and I had put all the mic heads through the dishwasher in the week to freshen them up after GlastonBury St Edmunds.  Once running I decided to stick to centre panning as we had not suffered any strange effects so far,  but I also retained Nick's concept of added top presence which I think suits the Mackie - although the equalisers don't handle the high frequencies as smoothly as the Bose or Line 6 mixers?  Tonight I was using my birthday Godin XTSA Koa for the first time.  It looks gorgeous, plays great and sounds very similar to the old red one i.e. just what I like.  Everything else sound checked OK,  so I nipped home to pick up Jacqui and, with others arriving, we soon had a table of band relatives and supporters filled up! With everything in place and background music on,  I was soon nursing a beer on a warm and pleasant evening.   We had the luxury of a big changing room and put on our white shirts with waistcoats to start.  The place was surprisingly full as we took to the stage at 8:30pm and opened with the usual sequence. 

It sounded good,  we were getting applause from the off,  but no dancing and the band seemed a little nervy - maybe being that bit distant from the audience?  We soldiered on through a standard first set.  I couldn't work out why they weren't dancing as we tried rock'n'roll,  pop,  country even some slowies.  But they seemed attentive and were applauding everything so I knew we were connecting with them.  As we came to the end of the set,  I brought Chris out to sing "Delilah".  He was able to take the mic onto the floor.  Amazingly, some people came up to dance to this waltz!  We also had quite a few singing along and we got a great reception as we finished.  Telling the audience we now had the measure of them I announced "Green Green Grass of Home" as the last number of the set and we got a similar response with dancing and applause.  We had a 20 minute break,  changed into the red shirts and then ReTrio resumed with a little 60's sequence with "Eight Days a Week, Walk in the Room and Mr Tambourine Man".  These all went down well but we didn't get much dancing again. 

Now it was time to bring Abbie up.  She had decided to drop "Pontoon" from her set but we opened with the usual "Good Girls Gonna Go Bad".  This went well and she got a good round of applause and same for the next number "Blanket on the Ground" although weirdly the band (including myself) seemed to be struggling to remember the arrangements?  Abbie continued with "Valerie" which I thought went well,  but no dancing.  We followed up with "Sober" a slowie which I announced and got some good banter going with some wags in the crowd - played it well enough and got a good response!  And then we finished with "Country Roads".  Abbie got a good reception for this but was a little subdued as she left.  We carried on pick 'n' mixing through the second set repertoire;  couldn't evoke any dancing but continued to get a good response.  We seemed to tire and lose our way a bit so I was pleased to approach the finish of this set.  I asked Chris to do "Help Me Make it Through Your Tights"  Strangely for this number they all got up and danced and gave it a great reception! So much so I decided to throw in "Wonderful Tonight" as the set finisher, which got the same response - they clearly liked slowies on this hot night.  Off for another 20 minute break,  we got changed into tee shirts and waistcoats for the last set which would be about an hour long.  We opened with "Great Balls" and threw ourselves into this set much more energetically:  playing a sequence of dancey songs which started to get them going at last.  And then we did "American Trilogy" which brought the house down - at last we had struck gold in audience response. From then 'til I indicated  "HI Ho Silver" as our last number we were doing fine - although my voice started to fail towards the end.  There were enough shouts for 'more' for me to call for  "Johnny B Goode" as an encore  (I had asked Abbie if she wanted to come up and join in with Johnny B Goode but she declined on this night).  It was a bit of a ragged ending but were some shouts for 'more'.  We were spent so we eased the background musak on and wound down.  I was just about to leave the stage when the secretary of the caravanning club came up to say how much he liked the show and could he have a card for a future booking - so all must have been better than we thought.   I was pretty tired as we packed up,  but couldn't grumble about a 5 minute run home!  In retrospect it was a demanding gig.  We were high up and a bit distant from the audience (the first time on a high stage for Abbie who had found it hard going to connect);  it was a relatively hot night, our audience weren't in the mood for dancing and, physically, I personally was a bit run down from the cold I was about to have and couldn't give it my best shot vocally or energywise.  But we had won them over and are well placed to develop the caravanning entertainment  market segment.  As Nigel said:  Why not give our old friend Willy McCaravan a call?"