North Walsham Community Centre

I popped over early to have a chat with Dave about the upcoming showcase etc, but traffic was a bit bad so we only had about 45 minutes before we set off in convoy for the gig. Nevertheless we did finalise the running order for the showcase and I rearranged Dave’s music book reserves in alphabetical order. We arrived at the Community Centre to find Nigel already there (in just a shirt again despite the cool weather). He had opened up the stage door, so we just had to do a bit of serial display parking to get close enough to unload. It’s a big hall and big stage, so we were able to set up in plenty of space and set the master volumes to one notch over midway. Set up went well and the sound seemed fine, but there were a few people in so we didn’t do a formal sound check. Nigel found the stage light mixer and had a play around eventually settling for a cool blue wash for the start. Jenny and Laura arrived and Dave’s parents, looking in good form, had also shown up to support the band. Beryl?, the well organised guvnor for the night, came over with a list of our set and raffle times - it would be an 8:30 start on the dot! So we had time for a beer before entering our luxury dressing room to change into the pink to open set 1 only 30 seconds late. There was a good on stage sound and people got up and danced from the off. We followed the running order closely and bantering well enough and getting a good response from a good crowd of over a 100. We got some good local folk up to do a great bit of audience participation with the rubber guitars in the Shadows Walk – it’s a high stage but I got off gingerly to dance with them! So things went very well up to change over to the 12 string. “Mr Tambourine Man”, the opener for that sequence, went fine and the good news was the adjustments I had made to the Roland pedal 12 string settings in the week were spot on, resulting in a much more commanding sound. And things went well enough through the Hollies. But it was during the Beatles that I ran into trouble. Concentrating on vocals, my fingers went into auto mode and failed to remember some aspects of the changed key in “Eight Days” and also some of the chords to “All My Lovin”. After “All My Lovin” Dave set a cracking pace for “I Feel Fine” which was just beyond my ability to finger the riff properly on the 12 string. But I did manage to get Dave to back off the mic in “Can’t Buy Me Love”! To be fair we covered up well and I doubt anyone in the audience would have noticed; but once rattled it sometimes takes a few songs to settle down again. However, we soldiered on doing a good “How Long” and rock’n’roll session with added “Shake Rattle and Roll” before wrapping up with “I Believe” to complete the hour. The audience were clearly well used to hearing live acts and provided the hearty applause and dancing response a band needs to maintain its karma, so we were well pleased. We opened Set 2 with a country session. Dave did “Cheating Heart” and “I Love You Because” and Nige did a credible version of “If you had a Beautiful Body” from the Bellamy Brothers. We resumed normal service starting on the 12 string to do the Searchers, the Eagles and the Beachboys. I changed guitar whilst Dave and Nige did a good banter to introduce Alice. Somewhere along the line we played “Be Bop A Lula” as a request as we played through set 2 to finish with the Bay City Rollers. This all went down very well and a number of folk complimented us on the sound during the break. Jenny and Laura both won in the raffle. Nige set a calming red wash on the light then we were back on for a pretty standard set 3. Highlights were Nigel wearing the kilt in “500 Miles” and a well received “All Right Now” and shortly after a nicely paced “American Trilogy” - this was the first time I had used the flute setting on the Axon synth and I thought it came across as good as the Roland. We followed this with a very hurried Spencer Davis sequence before closing off with “Pretty Woman” and encoring with “Great Balls” and Wonderful Tonight”. Overall I thought it was a very good night for the band. We had all played and bantered well and it was nice to see a good turnout and reception for Dave in his home town. Steve had arrived in the last set and helped us pack up which was quite useful with Dave in full flow on the glad handing! Finally got away about 1 am and home for 2:15.