Caravan Rally Old Buckenham High School.

It had been raining all day and I set off in poor visibility deciding to take the main roads to Attleborough rather than attempt cross country. I found Abbey Road easily enough and then the Junior School, but couldn't identify the High School. So I ventured out into the country about a mile going through a serious bit of flooding on the way; but it didn't seem right. I came back and, noticing an open gate on the other side of the road to the Junior School, drove in and parked. There were vans parked there labelled Old Buckenham High School but it still didn't seem right? I rang the organiser to see what was what, but only got an answer machine. It was after 6:30pm now so I rang Nige – no reply! But a few minutes later he rang back to say he and Alex had arrived and were loading in? We decided I must have missed the main entrance so I set off back down Abbey Road and in a bit of a layby road there was indeed another entrance; I drove in and soon met up with the boys and Willy the organiser. It was a quite a long load into the large main School hall. Got set up on the main stage, there was loads of room. Nige had set up the backdrop curtain to absorb unwanted reverb and it seemed we would have a good on-stage sound. They are a really nice friendly crowd who try to help us out. For example we had a little crisis – it was a bring your own do and we had no beer! But one of the chaps donated some bottles of Becks: lovely job. And then we had some tea (and some had cake) as well so the band was well watered and looked after! We got changed into the usual Xmas wear, avoiding some broken glass on the floor; then we were set to go. Opening up with “Foot Tapper” it was indeed a good on stage sound. Our bantering is getting more confident nowadays, I tend to be on the ball more at the start of the performances whilst Nige keeps going all evo. On this night we set about some energetic bantering and audience reading to play a varied and entertaining 3 sets. They liked the rock'n'roll and the Country and responded well to all the banter. We dropped in “Rockin Around the Xmas Tree” and several slowies which went well. Even got some folks up to waltz to “Around the World” and quickstep to “Lady is a Tramp”. I was only using the harmoniser sparingly e.g. on the Beatles but it went really well I thought (apart from the last chord which I muffed). I think both of our voices are getting stronger from having to do more singing and we are more confident about busking. Nige slipped in a couple of Everly 'try outers' with “Price of Love” and “Lucille”; these showed good potential; just need to get them rehearsed up a bit on guitar and my harmonies. We had a go at "I Believe" for old time's sake; a bit ragged but appreciated by the crowd. We played on through to about 11:30pm then gave them a dress rehearsal for New Years Eve by doing Old Lang Syne, Okey Cokey, Knees Up Mother Brown. Most of the audience got up to join in singing and dancing, and it went down really very well, Then we signed off with “Wonderful Tonight”. Thankfully it had stopped raining by the time we started loading. Willy and his team organised some trolleys to get the gear out and we were soon loaded and on our way out of the gate. Made good time home going back on the A11 and in bed for 1am.