Although I have seen smaller stages I elected to just use the Godin 6 string and put my energy into getting the harmoniser sounding good. When Nige and Alex arrived it was good to see Alex had most of his family with him in support. By the time we got set up the place was still empty, so we had a bit of a sound check, trying out bits of “Just One Look”.
At 8pm there were about 20 in and, with occasional visits from some hen party girls dressed in pink, the room looked well enough attended by the time we opened up with the usual start. Things went generally well from the off with lots of applause for just about everything we did. Not much dancing initially but the audience were attentive even listening to our banter quite well.
They liked the wigging up for the Beatles and, although there were no takers for the Shadows walk, it went down very well as usual. After a 15 minute break we got underway with Set 2 opening up with a dedication of “Under the Sun” to Dave. Followed up with a good sequence of “Tambourine Man”, “Searchers” and “Hollies” getting a great response from the smallish crowd. We used the harmoniser to good effect with “Lying Eyes” and it too got a very warm response. Towards the end of the set we rocked it up a bit with “Johnny B Goode” and it brought the house down and some blokes up and dancing. In the break we had a request for Hotel California, which we opened Set 3 with. It started well but lack of recent playing led to a messed up guitar solo. However, I extricated myself to get a clean ending and once again we got a good audience response. Towards the end we rocked it up a bit doing “All Right Now” and “Can't Get Enough”. We wrapped up with “Wonderful Tonight” to a great reception with lots of shouts for 'more' so we did an encore with “Saw Her Standing There”. Pack and load up went well with many hands helping me. We got underway about 12:30am and home for 1:30am satisfied with a job well done.
