North Walsham Church Fete

Had to be up early for an 11 am arrival. I left at 9:30 am and, after an uneventful drive over, arrived at 10:55 to find Dave parked up and beginning his unload. It was already getting warm and humid and although there was no sign of rain, there were stormy clouds in the sky. Dave didn't seem too well. He couldn't get his breath; blaming it on the humid conditions. So I helped him up with the drums to the band tent. It had been set up closer to the shed this year and that worked better for all with easier access to the electrics, a more panoramic sound field for the band and the stalls were a bit further away which would give them a better 'trading volume'. Unfortunately the tent was on a bit of slope at my end and I ended up shoring up the Bose with some old mats and amp covers. I just about had it set when Nige arrived. He'd been for an unplanned dip in the North Sea at Scratby – he'd got caught by a big wave while walking the baby on the beach. I had asked for a simple set up, no FX rack, no strings and no 12 string; so things were soon working. We tested out individual sounds; I even played a bit on Nige's Hofner so he could have a listen out front of field. Nice bass guitar; it hangs well, fast action neck with a very natural feel, excellent string balance and the way I played it with a bit of a pluck gave it a hint of string bass sound. Dave was still suffering as Jen, Laura, Julia, Valisha and several others from the extended family arrived. He sat in the shade looking pale surrounded by his women ministering drinks, jelly babys etc. Poor old boy, his blood sugar was way down and he felt dizzy. We were just contemplating what to do about the gig, but he did start to recover by showtime. After “Foot Tap and Just One Look” the plan was to do Happy Birthday to Angela (one of the organisers) and then carry on with an 'unusual' selection of easy listening material to exercise it. We agreed that banter and continuity was not important in this gig situation, so we would play it like a bunch of old jazzers - i.e. with little breaks between numbers. So after the usual start and the birthday we did “Beautiful Body”. The on-stage (or in tent) sound was great and we soon got used to just leaving the Bose echo on for announcements as people out front seemed to have no difficulty understanding us. The sun came out and people seemed to be enjoying the band. We picked and mixed through the set 1 type stuff airing: “Seasons of Gold, Rainin in My Heart, How Long, The Beatles and Buddy Holly and Hollies Medleys, What I Say and Rockin Robin”. We were in background music mode so weren't looking for applause, but every so often we'd get some reaction or see some of the ladies dancing. Also the ladies in the stalls were bopping to the golden oldies quite a bit. We got through the Beatles in good enough order and it was appreciated, there was a quite a ripple of applause at the end. The end of Buddy Holly's “Oh Boy” was curtailed again, but I think Dave now knows what to do! We had been playing for about 50 minutes as we did the “Young Ones” and I called for “Brown Eyed Girl”. This got off to a good start and I looked out to see Dan had arrived. Dave and I were so distracted by waving to passing people that we missed the cue for the bass solo – drat! But Nige kept it going and made us repeat the F chord until we could do the bass solo and resume the last verse in good order. Despite some slight mistakes we were doing well. The sound and togetherness of the band had been good to start but had been getting steadily better as we went on, particularly the vocals, and I was feeling confident as we wrapped up with “I Believe” without strings. I put a bit of echo on the guitar to compensate and we sang with a bit of passion to close the set to quite a ripple of applause. We took about 20 minutes break and caught up with Dan and the gang. Dave was feeling a lot better as we stepped up to do the second set. We opened with the Searchers through to the Beach Boys and then Dan's special request for “Blue Suede Shoes” so he could hear Nigel's innovative bass lines. I missed an opportunity to call a bass solo in that one! Dan had to go at that point so he came up to say cheerio and how good he thought the band was sounding. I got the boys to do “Walk Don't Wipe Out” next and I thought Dave played the Wipe Out sections the best I've ever seen him do it. He put quite a bit of variety into which toms he used and played the figures without fault. We did the Eagles next at a nice easy pace and again the harmonies were good. A lady came up and asked for some Billy Fury – so we did “Halfway” complete with comic break to fix the 'girly harmonies' in the middle 8; then, of course, we had to do “Wonder of You”; Dave still got the beginning 'ah ah ah ah' wrong – I'll have to spell that one out! Next we did “Shine”. We did this really well I thought and as we came to the 'shi---ne' line the harmonies were great, the band was together, the sun was shining and the audience was clearly impressed; it doesn't get much better than that - it was our Glastonbury moment! So we took a break for the auction which took about half an hour then we came back to play a few more numbers before signing off with “Hey Baby”. Job well done I thought, we got packed and loaded up by about 4:30pm and I was home for 6pm. Ms J had done a record brisk amble in her 'Race for Life' and all was well with the world.