Seacroft Caravan Park East Runton

Dave asked us to arrive early so we could set up before Marc Buller did his bit with the Bingo. I left at 4pm, thinking I might call into Dan's for a cup of tea first. Got to the outskirts of Thetford in reasonable time in busy traffic but then I ran into a long tailback from, what I heard on the radio was an accident at the cross roads. So I did a U turn and made my way through town over the nun's bridges eventually crossing the A11 to take the A134 through the forest. After that things went fairly well, but it was about 5:50 pm as I arrived in East Runton, so I elected to go straight to the gig, getting through the barrier to unload just before 6pm. Nige wasn't much later and we had all our gear in before Dave rolled up with Laura aboard to assist as roadette. Dave was in much better health than the last gig thank goodness, but he was still finding it hard work to move his kit about. Still we got set up in good order by 7pm. The boys reminded me to bring the Fender 12 string in from the car and I set it up in some space behind Dave even though I could see it would be tricky to change over when we got going. In the end Mark decided to do the bingo in our break between 2 one hour sets, so we had half an hour to while away over a beer sitting outside in the sun - yes I did have my hat on! Gordon arrived in support and to have a chat with Mark the agent. We got changed into the red'n'black and hit the stage in good time. Mark did a good bantery introduction and then we were off with “Foot Tapper” and the short “Just One Look”. A fair on stage sound I thought, but maybe a tad loud? However, we got a good round of applause from a responsive audience so Nige and I introduced the band with the bit of banter where we forget to introduce Dave, this went well. We played on through to the Everlys and “Beautiful Body” with the banter controls set to high. Dave was timing his banter a lot better and we got quite a situation comedy atmosphere going between the three of us. No dancing, but I was surprised at how attentive the audience was – lots of response to the songs and banter. After “How Long”, which I messed up the guitar part, we picked our way through the medleys. First up - a good attempt at the Beatles I thought. The 4 Seasons was fine. The Buddy Holly medley was a bit ragged, but the 'wearing the glasses' banter went well and we got some audience answer backs in “Oh Boy”! Next we did an entertaining version of “Only You” with Nige and myself winding Dave up for the big note in the last verse. We brought the set to a conclusion with an OK job of the Hollies and then wrapped up with “I Believe” to a big round of applause. Mark outroduced us so it all looked very professional.













Mark set about the bingo with gusto, but the highlight for us was the beautiful Debbie doing the checks of the winners cards. As the bingo came to an end we got changed into the white'n'black so we were ready to take to the stage for Mark to introduce Dave (and us) doing “Let There Be Drums”. Dave took off with a different rhythm that he had planned to do. It seemed a bit fast to me and when we came to the run ups I knew it was a bit fast! But it went down a bomb with the audience. At this point I called for "Rockin Robin" as a dedication to Michael Jackson. The beginning needs some attention, but this song is quite popular with the audience so it might be worth some tidying up. Next we got Sir Cliff out to do the “Young Ones” and then followed up with a Shadows walk with a lady from Manchester and a young fellow playing the rubber guitars. This was a bit uncoordinated but very entertaining as I improvised some little jumps - and it brought the house down. We carried on with the Searchers and Eagles delivering a high quality sound that again earned appreciative applause. Next up was a well bantered audience sing-a-long of “Halfway to East Runton”. We did a great middle 8 stop when Nige did a gruff answer back and amused the audience by getting both Nigel and Dave wigged up to do the girly harmonies! Elvis arrived in the building and was followed by Neil Diamond. I called for “Shine” next and gave it a good intro about us advertising for Morrisons. Well the lady who had done the Shadows walk piped up enthusiastically that she had seen 'Take That' last week and we'd better do a good job! As soon as we started she and several other ladies got up to dance. We did a fair performance of it – not as sweet as the previous gig in the open air. We swang into “Amarillo, Hey Baby and the Twist” next to keep the dancy sing-a-long atmos going. There was a bit of confusion over the choice of slowey to follow up. I announced “Unchained” and Dave got set for “Love is all Around”; so there was a bit of a gap while I found “Unchained Melody” in the book for Dave. When we finally got underway, several came up for a romantic dance, and Mark came over ready to close the evening. We got such a great reception with many shouts for 'more', that Mark asked us to encore. We duly set off with “Pretty Woman” and then followed up with “Saw Her Standing There”. Nige and I had a misunderstanding over the guitar solo length again – we'll need to walk that through sometime! But as we came to the end we still had shouts for more. So Mark asked us for one more. We obliged with “Wonderful Tonight” and that calmed everything down. Dave held back on the middle 8 vocals nicely, but that exposed my croaky voice, so I'll need to give it more 'oomph' next time. That rounded off the night nicely. Mark was well pleased with the evening and our performance in particular. Pack up went smoothly and I was on the road for just after midnight getting in at 1:30am, a bit tired over the last 10 miles. Jacqui had to be up early the next day for a charabanc outing to Hampton Court.