Broad Farm Flegborough

I set off at 5pm expecting Friday night traffic, but the roads were quiet and, even though I got stuck behind a tractor for the last few miles, I was parked up outside the hall at 6:20pm. It was a sunny evening and I took my time going into the hall to get the back doors open. I had most of my gear in by the time Nigel arrived; and he had most of his in by the time Dave and Jen arrived. Dave had been taken ill in the week: a suspected low blood sugar episode compounded by overdoing it at the gym. At one point it had been suspected that he had had a mini-stroke and he had been taken into hospital in an ambulance! But he had been taking it easy since and he looked OK on the night. We got set up rapidly. The stage has a very low ceiling and, after trying the Hawketts Lean © and finding it didn't work, Nigel tried to copyright a variation on the 'lean' on by setting his Bose up in the front edge of the stage and shuffling it into position. Unfortunately for him, I had spotted this and quickly registered the 'Mog Edge' ® method of assembling Bose in low stage ceiling conditions. He refused to pay my license fee, saying I owed him for at least a few 'Hawketts Leans' © over the last year! The mic and guitar sounded a little boomy to me so I took a dB out of the bass on both. I set up with master at 12 o'clock noting I had loads of headroom for mic feedback. Then I took a bit of time out to listen to the bass drum amplification. It gave a good thump on stage but carried a little less well out front, so I gave it a bit more volume on the T1. The room was filling up so we didn't bother with a sound check and went to get changed into the black'n'white for an 8pm start. Opening up with “Foot Tapper into Just One Look”, the on-stage sound was very good I thought. I felt a little cramped where I was on stage and resolved to pull my mic stand and pedals back a few inches when I got chance. We played through a fairly typical set 1, lots of banter, a good effort at the Beatles (and it earned a good response) and we wrapped up with a fine performance of “I Believe”. Set 2 we started with “Let There Be Drums”; Dave lengthened it out which led to some confusion but otherwise it was OK and well received. Nige kindly introduced me as a rock star from the Checkmates and we did a good “Eyes” which got some chaps behind my right shoulder singing along lustily. Next up we did “Apache” with some kids joining in for the Shadows walk. This went down well as usual. We rattled out the “Searchers, Do It Again and The Eagles” and we started to get a bit of dancing interest. We got a great reaction to “Alice and Halfway” and Elvis's appearance and “Sweet Caroline” had them singing nearly as loud as the band. We kept the dancers on the floor with “Shine” and then wrapped up with “Love is all Around”. Set 3 was mainly party dance. Dave extended “Amarillo” which was a bit confusing but it all went down very well and we had them congaring round the room in “Locomotion” so I extended that. After “Hi Ho” we did “All Right Now”. This doesn't get aired that often but it got a good reception with lots of sing-a-long and I was delighted to get some applause for the guitar solo (even though I had cut it down a bit). Next we did a short version of “Unchained” which filled the floor and then followed up with “American Trilogy” We wrapped up with “Pretty Woman” and then I took us straight into a “Johnny B Goode” encore. A good night overall. I thought we had worked the audience well and at the end we had lots of good comments from people that had enjoyed themselves. The management seemed well pleased and we got got packed and loaded fairly quickly both Nigel and myself using the 'Mog Edge' ® method of disassembling the Bose. Following a quite run home I was in bed just after 1am.