We had a bit of confusion with deps and illness and finally ended up with Mick depping on the night. I arrived in good time at the gig on a dark, stormy night and had just pulled up when Mick arrived. We were directed to the back door and started to get the gear in through a mighty deep puddle. When Nige arrived he only had his Crocs on and soon got wet feet! By the time we had the gear in the floor was awash and I had to borrow a mop to clean it up before set up. Mick and Nige set up on the floor mainly to the right of the door so I set my Bose up to the left of the door leaving a bit of a gap to the door for emergencies. There was plenty of room so Mick decided to put up his lights as well. That involved quite a bit of lead running, but was worth it because they made quite a difference. Mick controls the lights from a floor unit I think. I met up with the Worshipful Master (a jolly Scotsman) and agreed times. We had along wait while they got through dinner, so we enjoyed a quiet drink and chat in the bar. Got changed into the black shirts with black ties and white waistcoats – made a change! It was about 9:50 when we started up with “Foot Tapper”. Mick caught the groove quickly and apart from a bit of an abrupt end it went very well. We continued through the usual set one easy going stuff and we were getting a good reception. Dancing was intermittent but they had just finished a big meal. The bits of banter we did went down generally well and the Beatles wigs got a bit of a laugh. I worked out towards the end of the set we needed slowies to get them dancing and we wrapped up with “Words” which filled the floor nicely. Because we were short on time, set 2 was only 45 minutes. We did an interesting “Searchers” where Mick took us on through the key change to A in “Needles and Pins” and then we had a job to get out and back to F to do “Walk in the Room”. But we handled it professionally without breaking down. We took a short break before wrapping up with a final 20 minute party dance sing-a-long, including a request for “Pretty Woman” which Mick sang well. It was after midnight as we closed with Mick singing “You'll Never Walk Alone”. This brought the house down, so we did do an encore with “Wonderful Tonight”. The Master was well impressed with the band and announced we would definitely be coming back to one of their do's soon. Quite a few members of the audience came up to say how much they had enjoyed it and we handed out several cards for prospects. Pack and load up was like working in a paddy field 'cos the puddle was still outside the door. Still we got away by about 1am pleased with a good night. I had expected Mick would fit in easily but the performance demonstrated more than that: showing strong vocal and entertainment potential once we get some rehearsal time in.
