Swaffham ex Serviceman’s club

Easy drive over in about 45 minutes on a typical sunshine and showery day for June this year. I arrived at 6:20 just ahead of Charlie who was depping on bass. I parked up down an alley down the side of the club and the Dave and Martin arrived. The club opened up at 6:30 pm and we could get the gear in through a side door off the alley. Charlie had a big Eden bass combo with what looked like 8 x 10 speakers in it (He had been out ‘till 4 in the morning playing RAF Cranwell and brought the gear that was in the van). Reasonable sized stage and we got set up without any problems and managed a bit of a soundcheck while there were only a few people in the club. It was a good sound on stage and we looked forward to a good evening. Got on for a one hour set 1, and got a good audience response from the off, and by the time we got to the “Everlys” there were a fair few up and dancing. Charlie was very solid on bass and Dave and I were singing and bantering well. Because I forgot to tape the set list up on the speaker near me, I found myself announcing the Beatles medley, where we should have been dipping into the rock’n’roll; but the boys took it in their stride and we reverted to rock’n’roll toward the end. Finished off with “I Believe” and got a great response. Charlie’s partner Dorinda had arrived towards the end of the first set and said everything sounded good. We had a short break and then got on for 45 mins of set 2 starting with “I Feel Fine” and a special request for the “Anniversary Waltz” which we busked a verse. Then we worked our way through to the Elvis piece, which went down very well and finished with “Sweet Caroline” and “Love is all Around”. We had another break for the raffle - Dorinda won a bottle of something exotic. Had a change of shirts and got on to do a one hour set 3 starting with “500 miles”, then playing through the dancey stuff to “Hi Ho Silver”. The floor was pretty packed with dancers as we did “Unchained Melody” (Dave’s voice still managed to just break up the PA on the loud bits). Then we did a good version of “Dance the Night Away” carrying on with “Bad Moon Rising” and “Shakin All Over” (Nearly lost it in the drum break) before doing a very relaxed American Trilogy. We finished with “Pretty Woman” which Dave signed off on and, following a great round of applause, we encored with “Wonderful Tonight”. Packed up slowly as Dave did his bit of re-booking with the governor. It had been a very good night for the band and we all felt good about it. Set off through a very misty Thetford forest to arrive home about 1:30am.