Trimingham Caravan Park

Second night in a row; I had a little sleep in the afternoon and set off just before 5:20 pm making good time via Thetford to Trimingham arriving spot on 7pm. Dave arrived 1 minute later and Nige rolled in 5 mins later. Dave and Nige handed over the paperwork and photo’s for the me to process for the showcase, then Andy showed up with the card key for us to get on site. Poor Dave had no roadie so had to unload and set up himself. We soon had the gear in and set up was going OK until I looked round and saw poor Nige in a tiz ‘cos on stage set up wasn’t working and he didn’t fancy off-stage set up. He has been suffering from unexplained bloat for a few weeks now and when he doubles up it is painful and affects his breathing - Dave and I keep suggesting Doctors but he says he had a good going over for the emphysema so we don’t know what? But we got him set up in the end. I set up my MP3 to give Nige a break and I had time for a little test of my new Roland GT-10 and it sounded very good – a bit Fendery in fact. I made a few volume adjustments on the fly and then it was time to go with Set 1 in the pink. Jenny and Laura had arrived by then and I was surprised to look round and see the hall was quite busy – it turned out there was a large group celebrating Nathan’s 18th birthday; but plenty of others populating the hall and bar as well. The usual start went well but Dave was a little too quick into the banter, but once again we had a good on-stage sound. With a lively crowd we were getting some good applause and when we got to the Shadows, Dave went out and got a small group to come and do the Shadows walk with the blow up guitars. In the meantime Nige and I were jamming in Am to keep something going – it eventually turned into a very laid back version of “Black Magic Woman”. While I was out front I could hear the guitar sound well and it is much better in sound and responsiveness than the Korg pedal, I might need to wind down some of the treble though? Got back on with the show and switched to 12 string after “Only You” while Nige entertained the crowd with his baby ghost routine – well I found it very amusing. The 12 string sounded too trebly through the Roland so I’ll have to set up a 12 string bank to boost the signal and cut the top. We bashed on through the Hollies and Beatles but Dave and I were getting a touch of sore throat at this point so we finished with “I Believe”. Had a longish break and restarted with the Searchers and then we did a happy birthday for Nathan ; did we remember the birthday hat? - I don’t think so. We followed on with the usual set 2 up to Elvis when we did a reasonable attempt of “The Wonder of You”, until I forgot the ending. Dave’s rough throat meant that Nige was volunteered to sing “Shang-a-lang” and, once again, the Bay City sequence brought out the dancers in force. We wrapped up with a good performance of “Love is All Around”. Took another longish break then we were back on with “500 Miles” through to “All Right Now” which brought out some increasingly boozy dancing. Then we slowed up to do “Unchained” before rocking on with a well paced Spencer Davis sequence. It was at this point that Nathan and his young mates started dancing very unsteadily and we got fearful that they might collide with the gear. Fortunately Jenny stepped up and barred their way to my Bose and Nige did the same to bar access to his. We got through “Pretty Woman” intact and encored with a cut down version of “Wonderful Tonight”. The youths didn’t mean any harm but they were well out of it! So not a bad night and Andy should have made a profit! Nige and I talked about using conventional gear next time we are there – not a bad idea, we need to be able to do that from time to time. We got packed up efficiently with help from Jenny and Laura and I was on the road for 1am, getting in after a fast run at 2:30am. Felt a bit sniffy the next day, so had the day off work on the Monday to sort out the Foot Tappers PR for the showcase.