I had twisted my ankle on the Thursday night and was too immobilized to make changes to the Foot Tappers PA so that confirmed a likely decision to take the “old Checkmates PA”. We set off in good spirits about 10:30am and, apart from a 20 minute delay at the Dartford tolls, we had a good run arriving with friends Miles and Jenny in Lindfield at 1pm. Had a nice lunch with them and then I helped Miles fix some TV wiring before setting off for the hall. I rolled up about 5pm to meet Raye who was already unloading his Sonor Kit. Graham arrived a few minutes later with his boy Adam who was roadying for the night. Raye looked in good shape and with Adam's help we soon had all the gear set up in a really well decorated hall. The Mesa was ready to go with the previous Foot Tappers outing settings so I turned to the PA. I was setting up the 'old” PA from scratch and took the opportunity to check out the previous weeks theory that you could cut out the enhancer by making a few equaliser adjustments. I switched out the enhancer and the compressor and it was an OK sound, but with a low wattage hi-fi power amp there wasn't much volume – couldn't even get it to feedback! So I switched in just the compressor set with near zero compression and used the make up gain stage on that to boost the vocals a few dB and then we got a more powerful sound. Interestingly by switching out the enhancer we lost the sub-bass frequencies that often cause more harm than good! The guys were getting bored by then, so we ran through several Checkmates numbers and some of the more complex other ones like “American Trilogy” and I made some minor adjustments on the fly – tending to boost the hi's and lo's a little. Adam reported a good PA sound and overall balance out front, so we tested it out for volume by boosting everything a bit more and blasted out Johnny B Goode. It sounded fine and Brian and Carol (the organisers) looked suitably shocked, so we carefully reset down a couple of notches to give ourselves a good starting level. By now it was 7pm, the bar was open and the first few punters were coming in the hall. Raye treated us to a beer and I settled down with a sandwich to rest my leg. Raye's old song writing mate, Chris (and wife Vera) popped into the dressing room to say hello and explain that they were going to try and take some pictures and video of the event – so could we assist by doing a bit of posing? “Yes” we said and they started off with a bit of 'fly on the wall' video in the dressing room as I searched for my gay pink comb which it turned out I had left behind. Then our wives arrived and said hello, fortunately no one said “break a leg”! It was showtime. We crept onto the stage as Brian drew the curtain shut and began his introduction, doing a voice over the 'pick of the pops' theme music to tell everyone: “it was 50 years since “Eyes at me for” entered the charts to peak at no 1 over Christmas and New Year; the last no 1 of the fifties and the first no1 of the sixties – its the Checkmates!” The curtain goes back and we open up with “Eyes” and the audience are all singing along with it, what a fantastic start! From then on we could do no wrong. We had applause in plenty, the crowd laughing at the banter and lots of dancing. About halfway through the set I put on the glasses, went out front and did a Shadows 'limp' to 'Apache' on the extra stage set up in front of the band. To be honest it looked and sounded much the same as the Foot Tappers but it seems this kind of thing is rare in Sussex because it just brought the house down! We resumed our set and played on to complete an hour with “Wipe Out”. In the break we had a request for a Duane Eddy instrumental. So I briefed the boys to do a short “Shazam”. I was a bit sweaty so we changed into the blue for the next set. Opened up with “Slow Boat” and then did the request for “Shazam” - again we were getting an incredible response! We played on through the Checkmates hits and a few others including “FBI” as another wildly received Shadows limp! To finish Graham announced “Let There Be Drums”. In the rush we hadn't had time to talk this through so we set out on this journey in improvisation mode. All went well until the bit where I take the tom tom down to the dance floor. I forgot to do the cymbal! But by then I was already playing along with Raye on his kit, so I had to detach myself a bit from that, move the cymbal forward and then finally take over from Raye who picked the cymbal up on his way down to the dance floor. Raye carried on drumming out front but I couldn't find any sticks for Graham? All we could find were some vintage looking bongo bashers so Graham had to manage with those! We joined Raye and the next section was a complete mess of improvisation cut short by Raye being forced away from the tom only to return with a massive set of sticks. Graham and I departed and left him to it for a minute while Carol came out in her nurses uniform and helped Raye to get laid out on the floor (still playing his tom). Graham came over with bass attached stood over Raye who then did the playing of the bass bit successfully! I got ready for the big resumption on the front stage and Graham joined me and Raye got back to his feet, counted us in, we managed the run ups OK and did the big ending well. The icing on the cake was Carol coming over to revive Raye and then Brian and a mate came in dressed as medics with a stretcher and stretchered him off – This was completely unexpected and I laughed so much my sides nearly split! After the raffle we resumed for the final set starting with Raye giving a valedictory speech about the band. The we opened up with “Great Balls” and continuing a fairly up tempo sequence through to “American Trilogy” which I was pleased to get pretty right on the night. After a couple more numbers, we started the closing sequence of “Lucky Old Sun” and the Raye went out onto the front stage with snare and cymbal to finish with “Early in the Morning”. I played safe on this and did the answer backs in lower (non – girly) register that usual and it sounded just fine! After a fantastic reception, Brian asked us to do an encore and we obliged with “Eyes” with everyone singing along! We did a lot of glad handing as the hall emptied then set about the pack and load up. With Adam's help we had the cars loaded for the off at about 12:30am and, after final goodbyes, we set off on our separate ways. Miles had left the door unlocked for us and Jacqui and I felt like naughty teenagers creeping into our lodging for the night. Next day we had breakfast with Miles and Jenny and then we set off to visit old friends Chris, Elaine, with their daughter Rebecca and recently born baby for Jacqui to coo at! Finally set off home about 1pm and got in about 4pm after a stop en route. All in all a very good weekend. I had been thinking about Nige doing the Foot Tappers gig at the Oasis and hope he had a good time. It turned out it was an admin cock up. Despite our dligent contacting of clubs and promoters after Dave passed it turned out the Oasis had been cancelled and replaced with a gig at Caister. But we had no record of that so poor Nige didn't get to play and the Caister gig had no band. Oh dear, we've had a run of bad luck just lately, we are due something going right – perhaps the drummer vocalist we are trying out with on Wednesday?
