Norwich Working Mens

Made good time over but came in on the Watton Road, ‘cos I drove on auto pilot onto the A47. Not a good route but I soon ended up at the club which was just opening. Nigel arrived same time and we had all our gear in and cars parked over by Pizza Express by the time Dave and Jen arrived. Nige and I agreed to bring the Boses forward and to the centre as much as possible to give a reasonable line of sight to get the sound past the pillars. Dave was doing some glad handing while Jenny set the kit up and with a great effort we bashed on with set up and were all ready to go by 7:50pm. So we got changed into the Red with black ties and waistcoats and emerged just after 8pm to open up with “Foot Tapper”, Got part way through it and up comes the concert sec’ lady to ask if we were practicing? We faded out for Dave to answer: “We have an 8pm start on the contract!” “Oh No” says the concert sec’ “It’s an 8:30pm start” Oh dear what a cock up – so off we went to pass 20 minutes or so before we returned to open up Set 1 with “Heartbeat”. We followed this up with a fairly disorganised “Girl of my Best Friend” with Dave starting to cough again and not a lot of audience reaction. We carried on quickly with “Cathy’s Clown / Bye Bye Love”, then back to Dave for a slow Jim Reeves waltz – still no audience reaction? We got a couple up and dancing to “Sir Cliff” and a bit of applause for “Peggy Sue” but it was hard going. We picked and mixed our way through the rest of the set but only really got a good response dancing and applausewise as we wrapped up with “I Believe”. Some of the dancers were only arriving on the floor as we ended the last verse and I tried to get Dave to go round again, but he was suffering vocally so we ground to a halt. As we came off Nige spotted a vocalist mate who he knew from Arkwrights (another Norwich club) and reckoned he could have been talent scouting for them? So we had a break for water, bingo and a change of shirt and then opened up set 2 with a strange choice of the “50’s Medley” to rest Dave. Oddly enough that went down OKish with a bit of audience singalong. We carried on with the Searchers. This got a much better response, quite a few up and dancing and it carried on thru “Do It Again”. We tried to get the Eagles going but Dave couldn’t get his breath, so we played a bit of “Walk Don’t Run” while he coughed something horrible up. Somehow we got through the “Eagles” and a messy “Shine” before we hammed up “Alice”, “Halfway” and a lacklustre visit from Elvis. There was a bit of life in “Sweet Caroline” and “The Moon of Love” but then we drifted off piste to a fizzle out end: I think it was with: “Good Luck Charm”. After the break for the raffle we only had about 40 minutes to go so we got straight into “Amarillo” and ran through to “Hi Ho” with quite a few dancing before we slowed up for “Unchained”. I made the wrong call for “Midnight Hour” next. We played it well enough - but it was just not on the audiences wavelength. Then it was time to wrap up with “Pretty Woman / Wonderful Tonight” and it was over. A rough night and to top it off: on the way up to get changed Dave had an altercation with the bar man. In the dressing room it was clear we all felt bad about the place, the performance and the hard work for such little reward. It was a hard job packing up and keeping a lid on emotions but I think we all felt that this particular gig needed something extra (not just money?) to make it worthwhile. Nige and I talked about a ‘Dave Sore Throat’ set that would allow him to ease off vocally and allow the band to crack on with continuity – we think we have enough material to do something like that. Jen kindly undertook to wash my shirts becuase J was off for her reconstruction op' the next week. Finally got off about 12:30am. I missed the turn for the inner ring road and ended up going through the centre. It was very busy with young revellers and it took about 10 minutes extra to get onto the A11. Then I had a good run home getting in about 1:45am.