Norwich WMC

Left at 5:30 and was in Norwich by 6:15pm. I was still looking for a legal way to make the turn to the club, so I carried on round the inner ring road to Duke St only to find it was one way = the wrong way and then I remembered I found this out last year!!! So I took a side road into the centre and after various duckings, divings, false drives up cul de sacs and one-way streets, I arrived on a road looking to make a promising crossing of the river. But no! The bridge was closed for repairs and I was diverted back under the inner ring road and out into the suburbs. Now lost I followed the sun to try and get back to the ring road and eventually came out near Oak St. I gave in at this point and drove the usual way to the club doing the dodgy right turn to find Dave’n’Jen parked up already unloading and stacking their gear outside a locked club. It wasn’t long before the club opened and Nige arrived, so we hauled the gear in and up to the concert room. Nige and I set off to park. He got a place on the street but I ended up going round the back to the Pottergate car park. Back in the club I remembered from previous experience that the stage curtains absorb a lot of the bands sound projection into the room; so I took a few minutes to hang the stage curtains away from the band as much as possible. Set up went like a well oiled machine and we were soon drinking lager courtesy of Nige who sets up after Dave so he knows where he can go. We got changed into the red’n’black and took to the stage a few minutes late to start a typical set 1. The sound on stage was fine, the banter was going down well and our continuity was good. There was a good rhythmic feel to the band and even a few up and dancing! Playing for an hour, we avoided the Beatles and the Shadows walk on the night but turned in a good Hollies performance and gave “Raining in my Heart” an airing. Nige dressed up in glasses and a wig to do Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue” and we followed up with some rock’n’roll to give the dancers a good run. We finished with one, two, three Foot Tapper ladies doing “3 times a Lady”. Then there was a long break for bingo which was slowed by technical problems. Eventually we resumed to start a typical set 2 with the Searchers. Again Dave had the timing pegged back to pretty well perfect for dancing and the floor filled accordingly. We fitted in "Let There Be Drums" (it went better with a 3 bar break between chords, but I messed up the run ups) and "Eyes at Me For", which also went well (but I couldn't get the audience to sing-a-long?). We rattled on nicely to Elvis and I was just going to announce it as Phil (the concert sec) came over to announce a competition winner. After that short break we resumed unusually with "Walk Don't Wipe Out" to exercise Dave's muscles. After Elvis and Neil Diamond to finish the set 2 stuff we got going with “Amarillo” through the party dance sequence to “Locomotion”. We toned it down for “Unchained”. Now, here I was searching for an announcement about toilet chains and Nigel completed it brilliantly saying “low flush handle toilet modernisation in the 1970’s resulted in a lot of toilets being unchained!” After this we gave the Spencer Davis sequence an airing – a bit fast and out of practice and Dave suffering with his throat. It was close to time so we wrapped up with “Pretty Woman” and encored with “Wonderful Tonight”. We had gone down very well throughout the night and we were in a relatively good mood as we packed away. I went to get the car and, to my horror, I found it had been broken into. The offside passenger window was smashed and the green spares bag had been taken. But, thank goodness, my spare Godin and Fender 12 string were still there; as was Nige’s Who CD, my MP3 player, the camera and my mobile phone. Phew!!! a lesson learned for the future! I drove round to the club and the band, Gordon and the twins and Phil and Mickey from the club all rallied round to help. Most of the broken window fell out or was knocked out by Phil who then kindly went to get the police on the phone. I reported the problem and elected to drive home rather than hang around. So I fixed up a bit of my old packing curtain to cover the window and set off home in (fortunately) dry conditions. I kept to a steady 60 on the A11 so it was just after 2am when I got in and unloaded the gear. Next day Autoglass put in a Perspex sheet cut to size and hoovered the glass out; saying the replacement window would be here on Monday. I had lost a Roland DR3 drum machine, the JTS radio mic, an old AKG guitar bug radio system and my spare Korg AX10 foot pedal. I don’t hold out much hope of recovering the stuff and some of it I won’t replace. But I will cut down on the spares I carry and bring everything into the venue for the future.