Wymondham Central Hall

Kenny and Caroline’s wedding. We had to cancel practice in the week because we all felt rough with colds and infections, but I was feeling a lot better as I set out on a sunny afternoon for this gig. Went through to the A11 via Garbolisham and had a good run over to Wymondham arriving at 6:20pm after one false turn. Introduced myself to Kenny and Caroline and I was shown to the band dressing room labelled “Superstars Dressing Room for Dave Lemmon and the Foottappers”! . Kenny is the leader of Kenny and the Strollers and I was introduced to his guitarist Mickey as they opened up the back fire door so we could get easyish access to the stage. I had just started to unload when Dave rolled up. There are steps and some narrow stairs to negotiate to get the gear on stage. We had all our gear in by the time Nigel appeared, he’d had a late start and a couple of wrong turnings. It’s a big stage, so we set up well forward, avoiding the props for the children’s entertainer. By the time he finished his show we were ready to power up. I had set up the radio mic (sharing an input with the synth) and everything worked first time. It was a good job I did set the radio mic up because the house system wasn’t working. Although it was a very mixed audience, Nige and I set the volume on the Boses one notch higher because it was such a big hall. We didn’t bother with a sound check and by the time we got changed it was showtime. We ran through the usual first set. It started OK, I thought the sound was good and we soon had some people up and dancing and we got some applause in all the right places. The oldies and slowies went down as well as the faster numbers and the show was generally well paced and relaxed. Dave and I got a bit mixed up with the running order and the use of 12 string, but we just carried on:- I ended up playing Mr Tambourine Man, the Hollies and the Beatles on 6 string. I thought we did a fine version of “How Long” - I got the start of the guitar solo right at last and we got a warm round of applause. We got Kenny and Mickey up to dance to “Apache” with the rubber blow up guitars (rubbercasters). Got into the rock’n’roll and Dave elected again to choose “Shake Rattle and Roll” as the third piece; and again I was a bit out of practice and messed up the guitar solo but I hope no one noticed! Finished off with both “Three Times a Lady” and “I Believe” which both went down well with this mixed audience. In the break we had time for a bit of hog roast and a water and lime. Went back on for set 2 starting up with “Hotel California”, I momentarily forgot some of the words but soon got back in synch; but (thank goodness) I got the guitar solo right! Then we were into the Searchers - a good rendition. We got Caroline’s father up next to sing “Oh Boy”; I thought we did a good job – he sang it well and we were very together and harmonised nicely on the answer backs. Departing from the usual order, Dave dedicated the next song “Sweet Caroline” to the bride. Dedicating “Alice” to one of the bridesmaids, we ploughed on through the rest of set 2 to finish with the Elvis bit. Took a longish break for more water and lime and then we were up for a final bash at 10:50ish. A lot of the audience had gone home by then but we started up the party dance sequence with “500 Miles”. I looked round and Nigel had disappeared. So I kept on waffling away until he reappeared in a kilt with a plastic backside hanging out! What a sight – at the end Dave and I couldn’t resist having a look up his kilt but all I can say is it was very dark up there!! Getting back on with the show, we carried on the sequence from “Amarillo” through to “Locomotion”. The few that were left danced gamely. Then we did a short version of “Unchained” and I think it was at this point we did a fair rendition of “The Wonder of You” requested by Mickey and dedicated to Kenny. We finished off with “Pretty Woman and Wonderful Tonight” stopping at exactly 11:30 pm. Kenny and Caroline were very pleased with our performance and I thought we had done well – weddings are notoriously difficult for bands, because predictably people get drunk and then they can be hard to please and easy to anger!. But this was about the most civilised wedding I’ve done in my career. Nigel is starting to fit into the banter now and Dave was on good form on the night. A lot of my minor lyric and guitar forgetting mistakes are down to not practicing at home just lately with being in Spain and other domestic distractions, but I’m sure I can fix that soon. Then it was a long pack and load up. The only trouble with our current set up is that it needs lots of leads plugging in. My plan to overcome this is to have a stage box coming out of the reverb rack which Nigel and I will plug the Bose and all the other ancillaries into. After a group hug I had a quiet run home getting back at 1am. The weather is great for the end of September and on the Sunday Jacqui and I went for a long walk (about 6 miles there and back) to a pub at Thurston. I think that might have contributed to my knee getting painful on the Monday and me ending up at the chiropractors on Tuesday with an inflamed ligament.