Blofield Plantation Park Hall 60th Party

Fairly pleasant sunny weather for the drive over for which I took at an easy pace, arriving in Blofield about 6:20pm. Couldn’t find Plantation Park straight off but then I spotted it as I drove past the entrance. So came back and you can see a clump of trees around Norwich United’s football ground just to the North of the A47 and that was it. Drove down the long drive into the car park and Dave A and Rita were already parked there. So I said hello and had a brief sit in their camper van for a few minutes before backing my car up to the door to the club. The gig was upstairs so I was glad to see Dave and Martin arrive, but the bar manager gave me a lift up with the PA anyway. It’s a medium sized room with sloping ceilings, the band plays at one end - but there is a fire escape in the middle. Initially we started to set up on the right hand side of the bar area, but in the end we moved over to the other corner, which put me in the sloping ceiling area and meant we had to set the PA down a few notches on its stand. Dave A was using his Fender mustang with a De Marzio pickup – through his Trace Elliot 2 x 10 rig it sounded just as good as his usual Bass Collection. We decided the club lights would be sufficient and set up and soundchecked OK. I got Dave to do a bit of “Nights in White Satin” to check out the main reverb. This was good but I concluded that the rock’n’roll slapback echo level needs to be reduced a little – a job for the next practice! Had a beer and did a good but short set 1. Got Tony and Angie up to do the Shadows walk. This whole set went down well with a smallish but mixed crowd. Had a break for the buffet and another beer and then went back on to do the rest of set 1 and some other stuff including a country medley, “Happy Birthday” for Tony in the hat and the “James Bond Theme” for his mate. In Set 3 we picked and mixed our way through to American Trilogy and then did a good rendition of some modern country in the form of “Dance the Night Away, Achey Breaky Heart, Bad Moon Rising”. There were a few stragglers staying to midnight so we finished off with the usual Orbison and Clapton. Dave A had a 2 beat bass going in “Pretty Woman” which didn’t fit too well with the vocals so we’ll need to fix that next time out. My throat was still playing up and I was really tired packing up and was glad to get the gear in the car. One of the guys running the bar said how much he enjoyed out harmonies and Tony and Angie were suitably appreciative. SO I plied Dave and Martin with cola. Dave A and Rita were staying in the car park and heading off West the next day. I took it easy on the way back, passing two police car incidents and got in very tired at 2am. Think I am suffering the last bout of this long virussy cold!