Toftwood Social

With Jacqui away I had to make my own sandwich pack up, but having made it I decided to eat it there and then. That made me a bit late getting away, and with some fairly slow traffic en route to Thetford I pushed on speedwise to Watton and beyond. Despite a wrong turn into Stone Lane (the club is on the other side of the road!) I rolled into the yard at about 6:55pm to find Dave'n'Jen and Nige parked up waiting for the club to open. I got out the car said hello and the the club door opened – magic! The stage is on the left immediately inside the door so it was a quick load in. Set up was easy on the deep stage, Dave and I were a bit cramped for space because of the awkward shape at the front of the stage but there was plenty of room for the 12 string at the back so I set that up. We didn't bother with a sound check but I ran through some points with Nige and Dave – Dave showed me his 50's click sticks for “All Right Mama” and Nige and I walked through the solo to “Saw Her Standing There” Dave did a bit of glad handing while Nige got the beers in again. Terry and Maureen Edwards arrived in support with a few friends so we had to prise Dave away to get changed into the black with white tie. Poor Nige, he isn't happy with his black shirt which is looking a bit worn after several thousand gigs – I can see a trip to M&S mens fashion looming! The room was about 60% full as we took to the stage at 8:30pm. Dave did a bit of an introduction of the band then we made the usual start with “Foot Tapper into Just One Look”. I thought the on-stage sound was OK and the sound out front must have been good, because we got good applause. We carried on through a typical set 1 start through to the Beatles. I thought we played that well and once again it earned enthusiastic applause in its new early spot in the set. We followed up with “How Long”. I had thought this gig would be more about dancing but, although some people looked jiggy in their chairs, there was no dancing yet. But we were being received very well I thought. Next we did a fairly tight performance of “Seasons of Gold” with the banter and music going down very well. “Only You” was the mid-set slowey. I urged people to come up and have a romantic dance to the 'cod of love' (Dave) and we got quite a few takers. The dancers also enjoyed the banter and the mid-song stop for Dave to be wound up to get the big note. After that I made a judgement call that rock'n'roll would go well, so we set off into “Rock Around the Clock” into “Summertime Blues” and filled the floor nicely. I decided to follow up with “All Right Mama” to give Dave's clickety sticks a go, but by then the dancers were tiring and soon thinned out. We were playing it well enough but I decided to cut it short and get back to entertainment with “The Hollies”. We wrapped up bang on 9:30pm with “I Believe” which was very well received. Playing the rock'n'roll meant that we still had Cliff and the Shads and Buddy Holly routines to work in so I was already thinking hard about what we would put into the 45 minutes we had for set 2 as we left the stage. Following good practice I turned off all the channels on the T1 mixer. After a 15 minute break we re-assembled for set 2. I switched on my mic and the guitar, but somehow failed to switch the drum mic on. We decided to open with the Searchers with me on 12 string. The medley was very well received but no dancing, so I asked Dave to skip “Do It Again” and we did “Eyes at Me For” with added banter and sing'a'long. It seemed to go well with the audience so continuing the banter I called for our resident child prodigy (Nigel) to do a tribute to Jacko with “Rocking Robin”. We got the start of this better, but it was a bit loose thereafter. It will tighten up as we continue to play it. I called for the Eagles next and that brought a few dancers up. I thought we played and sang the sequence well and it was very well received by the crowd. I made a bit of a bad call to do “Alice” next. For some reason the audience didn't want to play along much with this one and we only got some half hearted answer backs. “Halfway” went much better and Nige and Dave did a good girly wig routine in the middle 8. Then Dave took his time to make a great appearance as Elvis doing “Wonder of You”. We followed up quickly with “Sweet Caroline” and this filled the floor so then Dave made a good call to play “Do it Again” to keep the dancers going. That took us to after 10:30pm = time for the members raffle! So we took a break and changed shirts. So far so good; the band had been going down well and people reported a classy sound. That is apart from one of Dave's mates, who noticed I had forgotten to switch the drum mic on at the start of the set! During the break I was still pondering how to fit in Buddy Holly and the Shadows walk, but by the time the concert sec announced the band to play again, Dave and Nige were only just struggling out of the dressing room, so I started the riff for 500 miles and they eventually joined me and we did a bit of Scotch banter. No one came up to dance but they clapped along, so we announced “Amarillo” as the one to come up and have a dance to. This was only partly effective - only a few came up for a dance. We carried on into “Hey Baby” and got some good sing-a-long going, but still not much dancing. I was beginning to feel a bit rough at this point. I felt somewhat drained of energy and I was pleased when Dave brought Terry Edwards up to do a few songs starting with “Johnny B Goode” and then “Take These Chains” into “Lend Me the Pillow” and “He'll Have to Go”. Surprisingly, this all went down very well. Dave continued the country feel with “Your Cheating Heart” and then called for “Love is All Around”. By then I was feeling quite weak and found it hard to concentrate. Also, I couldn't get the guitar sound right and I was making quite few cock ups. Dave and Nige soldiered on with the banter and we may have done some other numbers but I can't remember too well (it turned out it was a disastrous outing on guitar for the Quo Medley). Anyway I do remember we did “Unchained” as a finisher, with Dave doing a big sign off for the band. But we got such a great response with shouts for 'more', that the concert sec' asked for an encore. We duly swang into “Pretty Woman” and then rounded proceedings off with “Wonderful Tonight”. Not often I say this, but I was pleased to finish. Pack up was a bit slow on my part, but eventually we were ready for load up. The boys reported it was raining quite heavily, so when I went out to unlock the car, I grabbed an old curtain and put it round my shoulders to keep the rain off. Nige and Dave thought this was hilarious! I was quite tired on the way home, but the next day I felt fine and we took Claire's friend Suzzie and Rocky out for lunch at Cannons; a couple of pints later I felt back to normal! Reflecting on things, I learned some lessons at Toftwood – don't obsess about dancing (I'm usually good at that!), slowies are sometimes all an audience of a certain age wants to do (I'm usually good at spotting that!) and we always have the option to play the country card at this kind of gig.