Caister Community Centre

This was a new gig for us and Dave had briefed us that the guvnor liked the band PR and looked forward to seeing the entertainment / dressing up bit. Set off at 5pm. A fast run to Acle meant I was in the vicinity of the club by 6:20pm. But I was wrongly looking for the Social Club, so I drove by the Community Centre and all the way down to the beach before turning back when I saw Nigel pull into the Community Centre! We parked up round the back next to Dave’s van and entered the club room through the fire door. It’s a small room with a small stage, but looked to be ‘our kind of club’. Dav’n’Jen were setting up and Nige and I soon pitched in to get Dave placed well forward so we could set up the Bose’s and Nigel behind Dave. That left me out front on a small stage extension about a foot lower than the main stage. The extension was made up of two felt covered boxes that tended to slip apart when moving around or treading the pedal board. We met up with PJ the guvnor and he sorted out set times (2 sets), lighting and dressing room for us. Then he asked us to do a soundcheck so we did a bit of “Just One Look” – it was a bit loud so we had another bash and he gave us the OK. We settled down to a beer then had a few words with some of the early arrivals for the night - 60 somethings and they were looking for jivable rock’n’roll. I noted a request for “Johnny B Goode”. Dave struggled into his red shirt with white tie and black waistcoat then Nigel and I got dressed similarly. Nige’s finger looks OK but he says it easily pops out again. It doesn’t affect his bass playing - in fact he had depped for Midnight Hour the night before! There were about 25 in the room but also quite a few in the bar at the back as PJ introduced us and we opened up for an hour’s set with “Foot Tapper”. Dave did a good band intro voiceover the last verse and we got a good round of applause as we ended it and swang straight into “Just One Look”. Dave made a good decision to shorten this to one middle 8 (I think we should do that as standard - it allows us to give a taster of the band and take applause while they are still attentive). We took a few seconds to receive the applause but I already had the vibes from Dave that he was nervous so I started the banter for “Heartbeat” a bit less relaxed than usual. We got on smartly with “Heartbeat” and “Good Luck Charm” and earned a great early response from the small crowd. The Everlys intro went well with good Mog – Dave banter and we got going with “Cathy’s Clown” OK (I think we could do with Nigel and Dave doubling up on the high line to give it more presence?). The transition into “Bye Bye Love” went very well and brought the 2 couples we spoke to earlier onto the dance floor to do a bit of jiving. Here Dave’s and my thinking fell apart. Dave seemed to read it as ‘they like the Everley’s’ and I read it as ‘they want some mild rock’n’roll’. Anyway Dave took us into “Walk Right Back” at quite a pace; the dancers sat down and I decided to terminate it early to get back on track (got Dave a bit peeved – sorry!!). So I made the call for “Blue Suede Shoes” and we soon had the place rocking and the 4 dancers jiving again. To change the mood I called for “Only You” as the early slowie after that and then we introduced Nigel’s “Beautiful Body”. I decided “How Long” would be lost on this audience so we passed on that and got straight on with “Seasons of Gold” which went down really well with loads of appreciative applause. We did Cliff and the Shadows getting the Tour of the OSA (Other Side of Aylsham) banter timed much better. Then Dave got all the right responses to his Shadows banter from a tuned in audience and we got the 2 ladies from the dancing group up to do the Shadows walk which (once again) earned ‘a highlight of the night’ audience response! We passed on the Beatles but tightened our trusses to do the Hollies. For me this was a bit hurried, and I made quite a mess of the solo at the end of “Bus Stop” which threw me out for the rest of the medley. But I don’t think the audience noticed – they gave it a great round of applause. With time running out I called for “Rock Around the Clock”. Dave needed a cough at the end of this so Nigel and I transitioned into “Summertime Blues” with Nige doing a good voiceover introduction on our riff while Dave had a gargle. At the end I was going to call for a slowie to finish, but Nige and Dave made a great call for the requested “Johnny B Goode” which we duly obliged with for a ‘floor filling’ (well 4 dancing), rock the house finish to a great audience response. PJ came over and said how much he enjoyed it: great harmonies, loved the banter, wonderful medleys etc. Taking up a suggestion from Ms J, Dave got changed into his Kimono shirt while Nige and I put on our smart black’n’white outfits. So we looked like 3 waiters, 2 from a posh English restaurant and one from Chinese takeaway! After bingo we opened up set 2 with the Searchers which went down really well. I had already briefed the boys we would do “Let There Be Drums” next so I quickly set about introducing Dave and got in the remark about ‘he had to nip out to do a shift at a Chinese takeaway in the interval’ Another great audience response so Dave returned the compliment introducing me as an ex Checkmate to do “Eyes at Me For”. We played it well and straight but, with hindsight, I should have spotted that this audience were up for a sing song and put some audience singing bits in. Next up was the “Beatles”. I thought we got this much better than last time but, despite a lot of home practice, it was me that got the harmony wrong in “Nowhere Man” - sorry boys! Then we did the “Eagles”. This was too fast for me on the night and I had a bit of trouble playing the guitar bits in it (we had only had one weekend off?) After that we did the Alice - Halfway – Elvis – Sweet Caroline entertainment sequence. This all went very well and was much appreciated. Nige did a good intro for the “Bay Cities” but we were a little disappointed with their response to “Shang-a-Lang" so we cut that short and picked up some set 3 repertoire with “Amarillo" into "Hey Baby”. This got them singing along nicely. Time was marching on so we started “Unchained” and announced that as the last song. This filled the dance floor, but we rightly cut it short so we could take the applause and do an encore. Well the audience gave it up for us with lots of shouts for more. So I called for “Pretty Woman”. Dave was a bit manic talking over PJ who was asking us to do an encore and then trying to introduce me to introduce this piece. In my mind I was going to do two songs as encores to deliver good value for money - but Dave shut it down very quickly at the end. I feel there would have been no harm in doing one more, PJ and the crowd looked up for it and many bands encores last a few songs nowadays. Still PJ was effusive in his appreciation of the band saying it was the best they’d had in a long time. We got packed and loaded OK – thank goodness Dave spotted I had left the mains extensions on the stage. I had a good run home to Thetford, but I was held up there by a police roadblock on the A134. After trying unsuccessfully to navigate past it through a maze of a housing estate, I found an alternative route via Elvedon. Got in at 1:40am. Early for me - Claire was still out on the town!