It had been a bit stormy, but I set off in clear conditions about 4:45pm. I soon ran into a bit of a Friday night tailback at Thetford so I pushed on a bit quicker to Swaffham once I got through. There was some heavy rain between Swaffham and Holt and I found myself aquaplaning at one point so I eased back and eventually rolled into East Runton bang on 6:30pm Dave was already there unloading. He looked in good shape fitnesswise and we had most of the gear in by the time Nigel arrived. Set up went well apart from a loose mains plug into the reverb unit – its very crowded with untidy wiring in the back of that rack and I had to get my torch out to refit it. While I was face to face with the unit, I reminded myself that when I get a mo' I need to adjust the internal software equaliser in the Lexicon reverb to take some of the top off the processed signal – just add it to the list of things to do! In the week there had been a bit of a rumpus with the agent about dropping the presenter / bingo caller / childrens entertainer role at the club; but apparently they were very keen to retain the band. Co-incidentally Dave's old mate (and a presenter) John Chandler and his mates Thick and Thin (a duo on the circuit) arrived to see the band and have a meal. We got changed into the red'n'black and appeared spot on time to open up with the usual start to a very well filled room. We were playing it safe repertoirewise and the banter controls were set to high as we ran though a usual start. We got a good response from the off with lots of warm applause and even a bit of laughter in the right places. It was a fair sound on stage, but I felt we were a bit loud and Dave's vocal seemed a tad low in the mix; but by the time we got to the Beatles we seemed to have it about right. I thought we did a pretty good Beatles routine, nicely paced, no major errors - and the audience clearly appreciated it: they gave up a great round of applause. We continued through the usual set 1 medleys and songs for an hour. There was a bit of dancing here and there but on the whole it was entertainment biased. We wrapped up with “I Believe” to a great response. A very good first set I thought. Nige and I set Sarah (the entertainments manager) up with one of our mics to do the bingo. It was her first time and Dave had given her a bit of coaching, but she was still a bit nervous. I went over to the bar to check the sound. It was very clear and although she started fast she soon settled into a good bingo rhythm. At the bar I was talking to a chap who was very impressed with our Beatles rendition and promised him we would do some Buddy Holly in the next set. Jen arrived as John C and co said goodbye and we got changed into the white'n'black for our set 2 resumption with “Let There Be Drums”. Another great response! Then Dave and Nige introduced me as an ex-Checkmate to do “Eyes at Me For” and we got some good sing-a-long going. I wanted to get Nigel to do something, so I called for “Do You Wanna Dance” which went OK. I missed a guitar solo cue and the beat may have been a little fast but, as per the previous outing, we got several girls up and dancing to this one. Dave continued the dancey theme by taking us straight into “Do It Again”. I called for the Eagles after that. Hard to define what the problem was but the band had just started to sound a bit ragged to me. But I looked round and there were enough shiny, happy faces in the audience and band to re-assure me all was well enough. The seated audience was beginning to thin a little as we started our Buddy Holly medley request but it brought several up onto the dance floor. Although we seem to have lost a pair; by using my old Hank glasses we were all able to get our Buddy glasses on, banter it a bit and then play through “That'll Be The Day, Peggy Sue and Oh Boy” (with good audience answerbacks) in good order. While we had some dancing candidates on the floor we got a couple up to do the Shadows walk. This went down very well as usual! Next up was the “Halfway, Elvis and Sweet Caroline” sequence played to very good receptions. I called for Shine next, but Dave heard it as Shang, so he took us fairly smoothly into “Shang-a-Lang”. We have a problem here, because the Bay Cities is a sequence that the audience tends to really like and dance to. We could certainly make more of it in showmanship terms, but it seems surprisingly difficult for the band to play it. The main problem is we have a uncertainty over who is singing what. Believe it or not the lead vocal is quite demanding in breathing terms and Nige (who did it originally) and Dave keep swapping vocal parts. I do the high line. Also I think there is some problem over rhythm. The net result being that we play it: the audience likes it and gets up to dance, but the band looks unhappy doing it? For what its worth, my view is: on this circuit the Bay Cities is a good fit for these audiences; they like the version we do already and surely it wouldn't take much effort talking it through at sound check to get it good enough to also satisfy the band. But, playing it safe, we stopped after a ragged performance of Shang-a-Lang (omitting “Bye Bye Baby”). We then got going with “Shine” complete with some 'Morrisons' supermarket banter also interacting with the ladies that run the on-site shop. After the obligatory “Amarillo – Hey Baby” we did “Unchained” as the big sign off slowey. This filled the dance floor as usual and we got a healthy response from the remaining crowd, with sufficient shouts for 'more', that we encored with “Pretty Woman” and “Wonderful Tonight”. We had several people up at the end saying how much they liked the show and the management were well pleased with the night. So it seems we are in a situation where we play a bit below par but still go down well – good to know that. I think some of the below par performance is due to my not being able to put much into the band this Summer due to all the refurbishment disruption at home. But I can see some light at the end of the tunnel and hope to resume with a strategic review of where we are heading and with what repertoire by the end of Summer. With some help from the others I was packed up and away by about 12:15 am. I decided to go back via Norwich and got home after a fast run about 1:45 am.
