ReTrio at the Blue Boar Walsham le Willows

Torrential rain was promised as we set off in warm but cloudy conditions for the 10 mile run North to Walsham le Willows.  It's a long straggling village and it seemed like ages before Chris the bass indicated right and we pulled into the pub car park. We parked conveniently for the front door and entered a quite old pub - oak beams and the like!  Liz the landlady said sorry but they weren't ready for us just yet, they had been re-arranging things to open up the back bar.  But she got one of her guys started on shifting furniture to make space for us in an alcove with a small area of wooden floor suitable for dancing.  We had most of our gear in when Chris the drum arrived all in fluster.  His work hours have changed and he doesn't finish 'til 6pm so just time for a shower and a bite and then on the road! I organised a beer to help calm him down and Chris helped him in with some of the drum bits.   In the meantime, they had pushed a long settee right to the back and we were to play in front of it.  The great thing was I could sit in comfort sorting out the PA wiring instead of bending double in a dark corner as normal! 

 

I powered up just as Chris was finishing drum set up and it all worked except the guitar synth.  I tried all the obvious things before I realised I hadn't plugged the synth output into the PA.  With it all working I looked around and  the pub was surprisingly full - a good omen?  I looked outside and it was raining torrentially  - maybe not,  I started to hum "Bad Moon Risin".  We decided not to bother with a sound check.  Liz came over while I was having a beer and asked for us to start at 9pm and play through to midnight:  she advised us to keep it rocking and guaranteed there would be a full dance floor if we did.  Oh dear I thought - the first set only has a couple of dancey songs in it.  When the boys came back we discussed how we might respond to this and agreed to start off as usual but drop in some of the rock n rollers if we did get some dance action.  Actually quite a few of the people arriving were dining as well as drinking.  We enjoyed another beer and with the pub being rather busy I wasn't surprised when Liz came over at 8:30ish and said we could start as soon as we were ready.  By the time we were changed and plugged in it was 8:45pm and it took them a while to switch the house music off.  So it was about ten to 9 as we opened up with "FBI".  It sounded OK and looking up I could see we had clearly grabbed the audience's attention.  Apart from Chris missing the change to D in the high guitar bit we played it well and got a good round of applause as we finished.  "Hello North Walsham?" I quipped and got a laugh.  Applause is rare in pub gigs so I relaxed into usual show mode and carried on with our bantery, easy listening, history of retro music set.   By and large it went down well.  There was no dancing but lots of applause and even some laughter in the right places.  I did drop in "Alright Mama" in a dancey pace but there were no takers.  Things sounded well enough and at the 50 minute point,  I chose to finish with a short version of "Nights in White Satin" for a change - seemed to go alright and I was relieved my voice was in good fettle for the high notes after the last several weeks of a phlegmy cough.

During the break Liz came over and looked me squarely in the eyes and said the locals were bemused by the entertaining show and we needed to 'rock it up'.  I said we would do our best and I briefed to boys to be prepared for something different.  Chris the bass said he needed to sort out the compressor on the bass amp which he didn't think was working right.  I explained that he would need to turn the volume up if he was using compression i.e. it squeezes sound down in volume and you then need to raise the master volume -  but he still wasn't happy with it as we opened with "Do You Wanna Dance".  No they didn't want to dance to this!  And I muddled the words in slight despair.  We need to lay down a stronger on the beat rhythm to get them dancing to this stuff I thought to myself.  I had high expectation for the next song "You Really Got Me".  We did indeed 'rock it up' and I did a good solo over a powerhouse bass line (so good we did it twice);  but we got no dancing and even the applause was getting a bit muted now.  Actually the pub was now pretty full - some younger people had gathered near the bar and most of the over 40s were still there at the tables. Nothing to lose by trying a bit of sing a long?  So we tried "Daydream Believer and Delilah" - these worked quite well and we got a good response - but no dancing. We tried "Bad Moon and that got some dance action at last. A couple of ladies came over and started jigging around. I jumped eagerly into a rock n roll sequence of "Move It, Summertime Blues and Jailhouse Rock" to keep them going,  but we never had more than 4 people dancing at any one time?    We lost them with "Proud Mary" which I got going in the wrong key - doh!  Fortunately, we were able to fix it by the time we got into the main singing bit.  Our dancing ladies came back for "Don't Stop and Hot Love" and were quite enthusiastic about the latter.  We dropped in "Honkey Tonk Women" from the reserves and that went so well I called for "Shakin All Over" to finish the set.  This was strangely ragged.  I couldn't say any of us were particularly bad,  but it was quite untogether.  We staggered on to the solo and Chris forgot to do the drum break.  I started to count us back in and he threw a desperate fill in to get us back into the song.  I was glad to finish this one and take a break.  As we stopped for the break the two ladies (Julie and her friend) came over and started peppering us with requests for numbers by bands I do like e.g. Led Zeppelin,  Pink Floyd,  Eagles,  Genesis, The Who - of course none of these we could play as a band even if I knew a bit of guitar. I plinked a couple of beginning riffs on guitar and they got excited so in the end we negotiated that we would have a go at "Peaceful Easy Feeling"  if they would dance.  So it was that, after a well earned pint of water, we returned to open with "Peaceful Easy Feeling".  We had only once played this once before -  at our first try out band meeting a couple of years previously.  Chris the drum was confident,  but Chris the bass said best he could do would be to just have a go at playing along in E - 'OK lets do this' I implored!   Actually we got off to a good start and the ladies were singing along and clearly pleased we had gone out of our way to play their song.  Chris wisely kept things low on the bass as we entered the chorus with a few minor chords in it that he didn't know.  I managed to forget the words to verse 2 but made something appropriate up.  I recall the harmoniser sounded quite good in the chorus. The solo went well apart from one muffed note and we finished in good enough order for a little round of applause.  Our little group of dancers were delighted and stayed with us as we played the more dancey sequences from set 3.  Strangely we managed to miss "Sweet Caroline and Mustang Sally" which had been on my lips as we started,  but we did fit in Status Quo's "Caroline".  Most of which I remembered and the boys followed OK.  Even though we played it at the right tempo, it was too fast for the dancers who went to get another drink!  The pub had emptied after 11:30pm and we wound down towards the finish with "All Right Now".  The two Chris's asked for "American Trilogy" pointing out we had nothing to lose; I thought my voice was still in rather good shape so we will do it.  Currently I do have a problem negotiating the sound changes as we approach the flute solo and on this occasion I let the strings go too early;  but I did get the flute bit spot on.  Vocally I was fine.  After that, at ten to midnight,  with only a few people left,  I called "Johnny B Goode" as our last number.  We rattled that out and earned our bits of applause from our few supporters then it was all over.  I popped out to the car to change my shirt and came back strangely elated.  I put this down to it being the first performance in two months I hadn't been wrestling with voice problems from that cold back in April!  We fielded a few more questions and comments from our little band of supporters as we packed up.  Julie asked if I had enjoyed it and I had to answer 'Yes I had.  And, even though I thought we weren't the right band for the venue,  I had enjoyed the challenge and thought we played pretty well considering'  Chris didn't push Liz for another gig as we packed and loaded up.  Chris the drum rightly said 'leave it for a week or so;  some people liked it and their comments will be absorbed; and then try her again.'  But I don't think we will be back - we are too sweet for the place.  However, she does now know what we are like and some folks there clearly enjoyed the change,  so who knows?  Easy run home, then cocoa and toast before bed.  I remained strangely elated for a few days after!

ReTrio at the Limes Hotel Needham Market

Drove round to the Chris the bass's house for a 6:30 2 car convoy to the gig.  Chris has recently acquired a Ford Kuga which has a lot more room than his previous gigging car - i.e. Bridget's Corsa!  Nice sunny and warm evening as we pulled into the parking space in front of the Hotel.  Not too bad a load in from there;  a few steps lead into the Hotel front door,  then it's a few yards down a corridor and left into the performance bar.  Quite small really but you could squeeze 50 in I suppose.  There is a much bigger function room round the back and we used that to store bags and get changed.   We were well advanced on set up when Chris the drum and Trudy arrived and filled the room up with drums. He had found a car park at the back- a longer load in but no steps.  We completed set up and it all worked first time! We sound checked with a couple of verses of "Smilin" as usual.  The alcove we were playing in had some bassy resonances,  (a bit like the Tyneside at Sheringham).  Given more time I would have filtered them out on the DEQ,  but there were people already in the bar enjoying a meal and I was being a bit lazy;  figuring a bigger audience would absorb it or we would play at a slightly lower volume.  The audience didn't materialise however.  There were only about 10 in the bar as we opened up with "FBI".  We got a bit of applause for that,  but not much response on the next few.  I thought the sound was OK and eventually I got some response to my between song banter!  Jacqui had washed and combed our wigs for the Beatle duo-dley,  so we could banter round that - straight out the dishwasher I quipped!  It was during the follow up Searchers duo-dley that the power went off.  Strange -  I didn't notice a noise limiter?  It turned out that our power breaker had tripped.  I reset it -  the PA took a minute to reboot and then we were just starting the next song when it tripped again.  So I took it out and we plugged straight in the mains.  That got rid of the problem and we finished off the set with "Runaround Sue".  In the break one of the couples that had been enjoying the show apologised but said they had had a busy day and had to go - so we were down to 8 as we opened set 2 with "Do You Wanna Dance".  Although the sound wasn't great we were playing well enough and I did make a point of engaging with the few people there when the opportunity arose - but it was fairly heavy going. One wag said he would like Johnny Cash's "Walk the Line" 'cos he was likely going to prison!  We obliged with "Folsom Prison"  - I effected a Telecaster sound by using the bridge / mid pickup and a short echo on the Roland FX unit.  It all sounded not too bad at all considering it is not a regular in the set.  The 2 Chris's are clearly at home with this railroad country rhythm. The same guy then asked for "Hotel California" but we had to decline with this band.  We played a fairly long set 2 and a few more people arrived so instead of finishing with "Hot Love" at the 45 minute point I added "Wonder of You".  Both of these went down very well with the 12-15 in the audience and singing "Wonder" at full voice I felt I was largely over the vocal problems of recent weeks.  In the short break Chris explained that we had strict instructions to finish at 11:45; it was already 10 past so we agreed to get straight back on.  We bashed out a good half an hour of the faster songs in our set 3 list then finished bang on time with "Johnny B Goode".  Not a good night for the hotel - they had bar staff and 2 bouncers to pay as well as the band.  Chris reported that the landlady was relieved the band on Saturday had cancelled and largely blamed the football for the poor attendance.  But it seemed that none of the bands were bringing in much in the way of crowds and it was likely she would stop the live music.  Shame really,  it could be a nice intimate venue with about 40 people in there.  From our point of view it was 'paid practice' - and we are still making too many unforced errors so we do need it! Tear down and load up went very quickly so I was on the road by 12:30am and home just before 1am.

Sian's Doctor Party at Bar Humbug Bristol

Niece Sian had asked for some muso performances at her Doctorate party and I had willingly agreed to join in.  I came prepared with a small PA and my Levinson Blade Strat-a-like.    Bar Humbug has a small function room and Carl from the 'Controversials' set up a small (looked like Behringer) PA.  Claire's boyf' Nick (a BBC Sound Engineer) helped set it up soundwise and I plugged the guitar in to get a muddy sound.  Nick reported a dodgy tweeter,  so I switched in the top-boost pre-amp on the Levinson and 'lo and behold'  there was an acceptable Strat sound albeit at lowish volume - but enough for the gig!  After a few beers, I joined in the 'Sanders Band' (Joey Cahon,  Paul Acoustic Guitar,  Roy Harp and Simon Vocals) playing Robert Palmer's "Doctor Doctor" to open the proceedings.  We followed with "Hoochie Coochie Man" and then "Rescue Me" featuring a young lady called Liz.  Then I did 3 of my selection with Joey: "Alright Doctor" (a version of 'alright mama'),  Guitars Cadillacs and I got Simon up to sing "Brown Eyed Girl" with me a la my own party in 2013.  Next up was Carl and Matt from the 'Controversials'  Matt had a tasty Yamaha APX 700 11 12 string and the aim was to do some Beatles songs.  I found out that Matt is a real Beatle enthusiast and plays them in the original keys so I joined in on guitar and harmonies on "One After 909,  Can't Do That, Love Me Do / Should Have Known Better (with Roy on Harp)".  Next they did a "Teenage Kicks" by the Undertones.  I just checked chords with Matt and joined in that as well.  Once in the swing we carried on with  "Sunny Afternoon,  Saw Her Standing There and finished with A Little Help from my Friends"  I reckon I got 90% of the chords right but had to sing most of the harmonies low 'cos the Beatle keys are so high!  We carried on drinking to midnight then got a taxi back to Roy's house.  We had a slight hangovers the next morning and we set off for Bury after a big fried breakfast.  Got home about 5pm and was tired for a few days!

ReTrio at the Owners Lounge Hopton Holiday Village

Chris had set this gig up with Lee Derbyshire, the Entertainment Manager at the park, to demonstrate our potential for the various performance stages across the whole site.  We wouldn't get paid as such,  but In return we would receive 3 big caravans for the Friday and Saturday and we could bring family / friends to enjoy the facilities for the weekend.  As it happened I had a party in Bristol to go to on the Saturday,  so I donated my share of the caravans to the two Chris's to invite family.   This particular gig would be in the owners lounge on a 'World Cup Special' evening with a mix of quiz,  comedy and band.  Moreover,  we were asked to come prepared to play the "Match of the Day"  theme to introduce the compere and other performers.  We had had a couple of practice sessions prior to the gig where we ran this through and tightened up some of the show to be able to play a slick 60 minutes on the night.  The only snag was, nearly 2 months after the cold I had,  I was still suffering a low grade infection around my voice box and low fitness - but I was confident I could do an hour before my voice gave out. 

On the day it was sunny and warm and Ms J decided to enjoy a spell at the seaside and accompany me.  We set off at 2:20pm aiming for a 4pm arrival.  It was a good trip and, even though I took a wrong turn ending up at Great Yarmouth and having to head South to Hopton, it was just a few minutes after 4pm as we rolled up at reception.  I rang Chris the bass and he came round to escort me to the gig.  Good job too 'cos its a big park!  The two Chris's gave me a lift in with the gear;  we had to carry it around a bowling green into the Owners Club and upstairs to the lounge.  Chris did find a lift to shift the bulk of it. It was a nice surprise to see that Chris had picked up the 2 Ashdown 4x10 cabinets he had ordered (trading in the Harkte stack) - it looked gorgeous with a slight blue sheen to it.  It does add a little something (a bit more toppy jazz bass click) to the already excellent bass sound but the main thing is that it really looks the part with its retro badges and dials.  With the boys already set up it only took me an hour to get things working and we were doing a sound check with "Smiling" at 5:30pm. 

 

 

 

All sounded good and everything worked so we retired for some free tea and coffee courtesy of the Owners Club.  Jacqui and I went off for a walk round the site while the boys retired to their caravans.  We were well limbered up by the time we got back for a final relax and sandwich before our briefing meet up at 7pm.  Chris the bass led the discussion with Lee as to what we were to do and I appointed him stage director for the night.  Then we went downstairs to the unisex toilets and changing room and got changed into red,  white and blue patriotic colour tees for the World Cup Event starting at 8pm. As we took our places the band had at least 10 family and friends in the audience and the rest of the upstairs lounge was filling to capacity.  At 8pm we opened up with the "Match of the Day" theme to bring Lee on to start the show.  He made a brief intro of the event and then asked the band to play a couple of songs.  We obliged with "FBI" which went well enough (if a little nervy).  We finished to good applause and I briefly acknowledged how delighted we were to be playing to them on this special night. Then I quipped about the band that was riding high in the charts last time England won the World Cup in 1966;  this linked us into a wig up for a little Beatle medley of "8 Days a Week into Can't Buy Me Love".  All in all this was a bit nervy but we got a very good response from an audience clearly out to enjoy themselves.  Finally it was "Match of the Day" theme to hand back to Lee.  The event got underway proper and it was a mix of facts and comedy:  every time Lee brought someone up we played the theme music and Chris the drum finished it with a loud 'goa a l'!  The show finished with an anarchic 'French?' pizza making demo - we were prepared for some dough to fly our way but it was all ok - with just a sprinkling of flour on the floor in front of us!  Lee put some muzak on for an artistes 10 minute break and we got changed.  We put on black shirts,  white ties matching the white belts on our black trousers and returned for a 50 minute set. 

We started off with "Apache" with a bit of a Shadows walk in the flour sprinkles on the floor in front of us.  The guitar sounded good and the boys were nicely balanced.  (later Jacqui told it was a really good band sound in that hall)  Nice applause from an experienced audience.  We linked Sir Cliff's backing band into "Do You Wanna Dance" and then did a bit of country with Chris the drum singing "Ring of Fire".  I could see that was going well by the tapping along and we did get a big round of applause for it.  Next was some rock n roll with "Rock Around the Clock".  I got off too fast on this,  but there had been no dancing,  so we played it through at this pace - I managed the solo somehow!  However, it was well received and I carried on to do my bit about "Is Sue in the room?" to link us into "Runaround Sue"  Nerves had settled somewhat and we did a good performance.  I had been working on the boys to join in on a 'do wap' vocal arrangement - no harmonies as such but with the 50s echo the unison vocal backing helps build the atmosphere.  I was pleased with the response and we progressed into the 60's with "Happy Together".  Chris the drum and I had agreed an 8 bar intro at the previous practice,  but on the night he carried it on too long - I think he has trouble getting his first vocal phrase teed up in his mind?  But,  once in the song proper it was a creditable performance with the harmoniser doing sterling service to create a good illusion of Turtles harmonies. Again very well received.  Next we did our little Searchers medley of "Needles Pins into Walk in Room".  As the audience applauded,  Chris the bass called for "Delilah" I signalled 'soon' and introduced "Daydream Believer".  Now this got the crowd singing along nicely -  but then I messed up the arrangement finishing the song a bit early.  Nothing the audience would notice and they clearly loved singing along.  So now it was time for "Delilah".  I am pleased to report that,  after many performances, we finally played this through as arranged with no muffed chords or words and all the strings and echo effects in the right places.  Chris the drum sang it really well on the night and, of course,  the audience joined in and we got a massive round of applause as we finished!  I skipped "Saturday Night" and took us into "Sweet Caroline" to keep the atmos going.  It was the right song choice and the audience joined in enthusiastically;  but it was in this song that my voice started to gum up. I had trouble getting the low and high notes.  However,  being aware of the problem I could back off at the right places and the audience would fill in - so not too noticeable and very well received!  I made my mind up to tackle American Trilogy" while I still had some voice.  I got into a difficulty getting it started as I tried to clear my throat and then forgot the opening words.  But once that was through I sang it OK.  I had to delay the flute solo a bar because of poor hand co-ordination switching sounds at the bottom of the Godin,  then It was into the big finale which I was delighted the audience were singing 'cos my voice was getting quite croaky.  I needn't have worried because we got a fantastic response - as good as I get with any band and most rewarding!  We were on the homeward straight now with a dancey sequence starting with "Pretty Woman thru Hey Baby, Hi Ho and All Right Now"  As it happened we didn't get any dancing but we continued to go down really well as we approached the end of the set.  Lee signalled last number so we finished with "Johnny B Goode".  My voice was really croaky now but we had a good rhythm.  We did our outro's with each of us getting big applause and we got another big response from one table when I mentioned we were from Bury St Eds.  I skipped the final guitar solo and we ran through to the end getting a massive roar of approval and shouts for more as we finished.  Lee the compere took over and got us to encore with a final "Match of the Day" and we were done.

I left Chris the bass to manage the post performance meet and greet while I took a few minutes to recover in the dressing room.  Chris reported that the management were most impressed and were keen to book us back and he had given a lot of cards out!  They boys very helpfully pitched in to tear down and load up my gear  (they were leaving theirs overnight) and Jacqui and I were on our way before midnight.  It was a smooth ride home and we were in bed with cocoa by 1:30am.  Bit of a lie in the next morning before we set off to Bristol.