Broad Farm Flegborough

Carl is over from Spain and accompanied me on this gig, first of three this weekend. We set off at ten past five and ran immediately into Bury rush hour traffic. With added bank holiday weekend vehicular activity making it slow going, I decided to avoid Thetford and set off across country to the A11 via Garboldisham. Once on the A11 we made good time to the gig arriving at 6:45 to find Nige and Mick pretty much unloaded. Carl was useful getting the gear in and helping with the Bose lift on the height restricted stage. The weather is a bit cooler than we have been used to and the club management were trying to warm the place up with a massive gas heater. We were soon set up and it was only then that Mick and I realised that I had placed the bass bins where he needed to place his music stand. I shuffled my gear a bit to give an extra couple of inches but in the end Mick had to move over to Nige who moved even closer to the edge of the stage. Then I got Carl to set up my vid cam to test out the potential for generating a promo video. We had a pint and I looked round at the audience. It was the usual mix but I thought the ‘livelier modernish’ numbers we had tried out would go well. Only trouble was we did some chatting to a few people there and, by and large, they wanted 50’s rock’n’roll! There was also some confusion over start time so I ended up consulting with Archie – the man in charge who confirmed the night would run earlier than the contract stated. This would mean one set of 45 minutes and one more of just over an hour. So we dashed off to get changed and took to the stage about 8:25 in our black shirts, white ties and white waistcoats to open with Flingel Bunt. This went pretty well and “Just One Look” confimed the Bose was delivering a good on-stage sound. The only snag was the vocals were a bit ‘off’: probably a result of some of us feeling under par and not loosening up enough. But after a few numbers we settled down and tightened up vocally; and we even started to get a little response from a small audience of about 30. We continued to work hard to please but we were all making small errors. Nothing that the audience would notice that much, but a bit demoralising all the same! Despite this we had the confidence to try out some rarely played numbers such as: “Jail House Rock, Sky High, Proud Mary and Bad Moon Rising”, Also some of the newer numbers in our repertoire such as the two “How Longs” and How Sweet It Is” are gelling better and being better received. By the end of the first set I thought we were beginning to win the small crowd over nicely. But by the time we got on for the second set it was starting to get cold and the audience had thinned a little; but it was ‘Jim’s’ 72nd birthday. Jim had been the only one up and dancing so we gave him a rousing chorus and then played a bit more rock’n’roll for him. I also got him up to do the Shadows Walk – he did it better than me and earned the biggest round of applause for the evening. We did give “Uptown Girl” an airing but it was pretty bad. I need to sort out the guitar parts on the middle sections and the vocals were adversely influenced by my string of wrong or late chords. However, “Summer of 69” went well enough and I did it without the music! We wrapped up with “Walk Alone” but had a good enough response to plug “Saw Her Standing There” in as an encore. Although the band were quite down about the performance, the guvnor Archie was happy with it. With Carl helping out, pack and load went well and we were on the road just after midnight. Got home at 1:30am after a good run despite missing the exit for the A11 from the A47 and having to come back one junction! Looking at the video the next day the band wasn’t as bad as we thought.

Honing Village Hall near North Walsham 60th Birthday

Veronica’s big 60. Nice day. I spent the afternoon at the Bury beer festival (drinking 3 halves of the weakest mild) Got on the road at 4:15pm and enjoyed an easy run over to Norwich; then round the ring road to pick up the A1151 to Wroxham. By Wroxham I was running well ahead of schedule and eased back. Even so I missed the turning for Honing and had to come back. Its a very rural byway and I’m sure they have moved the village further out since I played the hall a few years ago! Anyway I finally arrived at 6:10pm. Mick was already there and Norman and wife arrived at 6:15 to let us in. Mick drove round the back to load in, but I decided to stay at the front. No sign of Nigel yet? Then I did the first load in to find Nige was already there – he had craftily driven straight round the back when he arrived! We had most of the gear in when the birthday girl and guests started arriving. Even though there were no equalisation problems, set up seemed to take a long time. We started with “Foot Tapper” - a good initial onstage sound impression was confirmed when we played “Just One Look” with good, well heard harmonies. I brought my mic up a tad for “Heartbeat” and with some people up and dancing we continued with the “Walk Right Back” Everlys sequence. This was a bit confused. Mick sang lead, I switched to the hi line and Nigel went South. We had quite a few up dancing so I signalled for a guitar solo; but Mick missed my cue and we carried on into “When will I be Loved”. We were asked to turn it down a bit at this point and I think the sound improved as we took the volume down. We carried on through an easy listening / rock’n’roll selection to complete the 45 minute set with the “Beatles medley” and a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday”. Then it was time for a jolly fine buffet (Dave would have loved it). As they finished their pudding I put on my Fender 12 string and we opened up set 2 with “Under the Sun” dedicating it to Dave who many of the crowd knew well. Then “Tambourine Man into the “Searchers”. The chorus of “Sugar and Spice” is missing the bass harmony which Mick should do. Wonder if we would be best to re-arrange around Mick singing the lead line in the chorus? Anyway, they were loaded with pudding and we didn’t get much dancing interest. So I called for “How Long – Ace” which went really well and, strangely, brought some folks up to dance. But, reading the crowd, I could see some unfulfilled potential for a slow dance, so I called for the Jim Reeves “He’ll have to go – Anna Marie” waltz sequence. Good harmonies in “Anna Marie” and it filled the floor nicely. In fact many of them stayed on the floor as we played on through a dancey sequence including: “Moon of Love - Halfway to Paradise – Wonder of You – Sweet Caroline – Hi Ho”. This latter went well so I risked “Alright Now” which they seemed to like and then Nige took it on with “Lets Dance, Amarillo, Hey Baby. Resuming after a short break we opened with “Move It”. I still can’t time the second guitar phrase so picked a variation to keep it going – I need to find some time to play this a lot so I don’t have to look at the guitar. Then we tried our ‘new’ upbeat numbers starting with “Uptown Girl” which (as Nige predicted) filled the floor. Lots of guitar and backing vocals to sort out though. Next up was “Money for Nothing”. I got it off a tad fast, the riff went to pieces and the coda words need ‘MTV’ing, but we managed to play it through (successfully as far as the audience was concerned). “Summer of 69” was the best debut of the three. I thought we caught the feeling quite well and the audience came up ‘en masse’ to dance to it. So - good work boys; practice by email can work! After “Unchained” and “Shakin All over” (in which Mick forgot the drum break), we started to bring our set to a close with a riotously upbeat “Johnny B Goode” followed by “Walk Alone” where we got off on the wrong key because I didn’t give Mick his cue. Nevertheless, we had a great response so we smoothly encored with “Saw Her Standing There”. But we had such a good response again after that, and then a youth shouted out for “Hotel California”, so we nonchalently bashed that out. Poor Nige’s bass was a bit out of tune at the start, but for once I played it right and it was a good finish to an adventurous night for the band. After quite a bit of glad handing the enthusiastic members of the audience, we set about pack and load. I took the Galaxy round the back to load because, despite the dark there, it was a much easier load out than through the main doors. It was well after 12:30am by the time we pulled away and I was really tired over the last half an hour into Bury - I had to break into my emergency Red Bull to get me through the last 10 miles! I think it was the effect of walking into Bury twice in the day. Nige left me with some thoughts for improving “Uptown Girl” = a missing chord to research (from “I Me Mine”?) and play guitar around the 8th fret to clear space for the bass, which I will try and implement in the week. It’s a busy week but the number is a floor filler and clearly worth it.

Wensum Community Centre

I persuaded Ms J to accompany me and then she persuaded Dan and Michele (Dan is over from USA) to pop over to see the band. A sunny and mild day – we had a good run over arriving at 6:45 to find Mick there. Nige rolled up a few minutes later and Richard (concert sec) arrived at 7pm to let us in. Set up was a bit slow and we had boomyness from the Bose. But after last week we know how to deal: I took Mick’s mic into my TI and para EQ’d the 98hz boomy frequency out. Mick set up his lights on the floor, this was quick to do but created a glare in the eyes and health and safety problems for the kids that were running about. I made a mental note to ask Mick to put them at the back at similar venues. Mick set up his new PC music prompt computer to match Nigel. That only leaves me on the old paper based system! Oddly enough the boom got less of a problem after we completed set up so I was able to reduce the parametric EQ cut level quite a bit. Met up with Dan, Michele and Ms H and we enjoyed a beer before the band got changed into the black shirts with white ties and waistcoats for an 8:30pm start. We opened up with “Flingel Bunt into Just One Look”. The on-stage sound was poor with a nasty slap back echo from a valance above the stage. We had some dancers up in “Heartbeat”, so I called for “All Shook Up” to keep the vibe going; then we followed up with “Cathy’s Clown” with Mick singing lead; I switched to high and Nige picked out a low harmony so that by the middle of the song it was sounding quite good. “Bye Bye Love” brought some dancing out, but as I was on a semi-acoustic setting I called for “Peaceful Easy Feelin” a bit quicker than normal please! Again there was an inconsistency to the vocals – sometimes impressive, othertimes ragged with chunks of unison. I’ll try to review this at home to see how we can improve it. Having said that it went down very well with the ‘crowd’ - by now there were about 20 in. Next we wigged up for the Beatles. This went fairly well up to and through “Nowhere Man” with good harmonies, authentic bass lines and driving rhythms. (Dan commented on how good “Nowhere Man” was). Then Mick seems to lose his way with “I Feel Fine”, so Nige took over lead in the verses. The 3 part harmonies in this song are still lacking: I think the intention is Mick sings lead, Nige close below and me on the hi falsetto line, but Mick seems to fade out. I think this is because Mick can’t easily do the bossa nova rhythm and concentrate on vocal, so we might need to re-arrange. After the Beatles we did “Ferry Cross the Wensum” (which went down well) and some rock’n’roll before closing with Words which brought up the slow dancers.

We turned the volume down a tad to try and improve the sound for the second set starting with the “Searchers” medley. The sound on stage was better but the performance was still a bit patchy. I fitted in “Daydream Believer” next; I’m gradually getting there with this vocally but still a way to go – I’m wondering if raising the key to G might help. Next we did a request of “Under the Boardwalk” for the dancers. Then we did quite a good “Brown Eyed Girl” with Mick doing more of a cha cha cha rhythm for the dancers. Dan and co set off shortly after and we followed on with some more strictly come dancing; doing creditable performances of Jim Reeves waltz’s and “Lady is a Tramp" as a quickstep. All this went quite well with the small audience with whom we were beginning to develop a good rapport. We switched to playing some more ‘modern’ stuff with Ace’s “How Long” and “How Sweet It Is”, both of which went quite well considering we hadn’t played them recently and, interestingly, they got a good response from the audience. We carried on through the Billy Fury, Elvis , Neil Diamond, Jeff Beck sequence to finish the set on “Wonderful Tonight”. We all had some glad handing to do in the break and then we were off for the final set opening with: “Dance the Night Away” and then “Runaround Sue” which I got off in the wrong key – sorry Mick! We played on through a selection of dancey stuff to do a big finish on “Walk Alone” which got a good enough response from the half a dozen or so people still in the hall, for us to encore with “Jonny B Goode”. A lot of the audience came up after we finished to say what a great band we are and what a shame it was there weren’t more attending. So despite it being a patchy night performancewise it had been quite rewarding egowise and we felt good as we packed up. We did feel sorry for the promoters, however, and I was quite sympathetic to Richard who wanted to change the date they had booked in December. Ms J was quite tired, so I got away ahead of the boys; managing to leave my music stand bag in the process. Not a bad run home on a cold night for a 1:30am arrival.

Tyneside Sheringham

Yet another good run over to Sheringham on a sunny but chilly evening. I arrived at 6:30pm to find Mick setting up. I started to get my gear in when Nigel rolled up looking a bit pale and lurgified. He wisely kept his distance as we brought the gear in so we could avoid the germs. Nige and I had exchanged thought sin the week on how we could get a better sound and avoid the boomyness in this venue. The first decision we took was to swap sides so my gear was on the offending boomy wall. Then we placed the bass bins on the floor well forward of the troublesome boomy corner. Next we inserted acoustic foam sheets underneath the bass bins to decouple them from the floor. Penultimately we agreed Mick’s mic would come into my Bose and, finally, I fiddled with the parametric equaliser to remove the troublesome narrow 90 hz frequency band from the mics and guitar. All this took some time, and despite some people arriving in the concert room, I insisted on a brief sound check with a bit of “Peacful Easy Feeling”. It took a couple of goes to get it right but we ended up with the best on-stage sound we have had at this gig – definitely worthwhile! We still had had time for a couple of beers before we got changed into the black shirts, white ties and white waistcoats for the 8:30 start. We were a couple of minutes late taking to the stage to face a reasonable turn out audiencewise; I chose to open up with “Foot Tapper”. We still have a bit of confusion with Mick as to where it ends so the finish was a bit messy and the audience were wrong ‘footed’ into not clapping. Nevertheless, we did our introductions and carried on with the usual openers. It was during “just One Look” that Nigel suffered a dodgy mains lead connection, his Bose kept switching off. Mick and I managed to bring the number to a natural close so he could fix it properly. We carried on started to work the audience and were rewarded with a bit of dancing and audience response. Recently I have taken it upon myself to pick the song flow, it seems to give us an edge in continuity if I do this - Nige and Mick know they are welcome to intercept with their suggestions (or veto’s) whenever they want. On this night I was sensitive to Nige’s ‘chest infection lurgi’ so tried to avoid some of the songs he would normally lead on. “All Shook Up” got a good dancing response and some of the crowd joined in lustily on the ‘all shook ups’; next time I’ll ask Mick to mime and let the audience sing at least one ‘all shook up’. We did another good Beatles medley to a good response and finished the set with “Words”. Midway through Nige and I agreed I would take the hi line and he would take the lo line when Mick is singing. So we finished the song on an impressive 3 part harmony accapella ‘da da da da da da da’ During the break Mickey Bream from Hustler arrived with a tale of woe about their PA packing up the previous night. He also solved the mystery of who the ex-Foot Tappers drummer working with the Diamonds is – its Alex! Nige and I were very pleased for him. Going on for set 2 we opened with “Under the Sun and Happy Birthday”, then it was “Tambourine Man which brought out some 60’s dancing. The dancers kept going through the “Seachers” but looked like they needed a break at the end, so I called for “Ferry Cross the Mersey”. This was a good call, quite a few members of the audience joined in and it got a great round of applause. We carried on with “How Long” which went well with the crowd despite my losing my way in the guitar solo’s; but I did manage to get the rising riff right in the ‘rock youself to sleep’s’. Aiming at the dancers we tried “Moon of Love into Crazy Little Thing” to get them back on the floor before I dropped in “Raining in My Heart” as the mid set slowey. We followed on to run through the: “Halfway, Wonder of You, Sweet Caroline, Hi Ho” sing-a-long-a-s to finish the set. After a 10 minute break we opened up set 3 with: “Dance the Night Away – Do You Wanna Dance” which got the dancing going nicely so I called for “Runaround Sue” which filled the floor. By the time we got to “Hippy Hippy Shake” they’d run out of puff again so went for “Green Green Grass of Home” and this got a great sing-a-longa reception. We only had a few numbers to play so I gave “Shakin All Over” an airing. Then it was “Unchained” which filled the floor, “Apache” which brought up a few Shadows walkers as well as guest dancer Helen who came up to do the walk with the toy guitar. Last number was “Walk Alone” but that went so well we ended up encoring with Johnny B Goode. Mick had been having a generally good night on the drums but in this rocker he played a very powerful and great sounding solo and then a great big ending. There were still shouts for more but we were over time so we wrapped it up as gently as we could. One of the better gigs at this venue for the band I thought. Pack up went a bit slow; I was feeling tired; more so than last week when we did loads of gigs. Got home about 2:10am very tired, and ached and slept a lot the next day so I put it down to a virus. Feeling better as I write this on the Monday so hope that’s the end of it!

Caravan Club Rally at Sheringham High School

We had Ray Royle depping on drums because Mick was doing a solo gig. Mark Buller (the agent) had told us not to arrive early this year because there was something on. But I had yet another good run over to arrive at just after 6:30pm on a cold but dry evening to find Ray already parked up. The governor for the night, Trevor, came over and explained that the Salvation Army had booked the hall until 7pm so we would have to sit tight. As it was, it was 7:30pm before we could get access. There were a few people we know from other events including Willie and Mark from the East Buckenham rally and so we had some help getting the gear in. Even so, any thoughts I had of using harmoniser and 12 string evaporated in the rush to get set up for an 8:15 pm start. But I made sure I found time to restore the T1 bass setting to 0dB for guitar. Nigel had anticipated the ‘no bar’ situation and had kindly brought some beer to power the band – most welcome indeed. We got changed into the black shirts, white ties and white waistcoats and took to the stage to open up with “Flingel Bunt”. I had briefed Ray on the set list in the week and he fitted in just fine on this opener and the following “Just One Look – Heartbeat”. The on-stage sound was very good and Nigel and I had no trouble switching lead lines and harmonies around to cater for the absence of Mick. From the off we got warm applause for everything and even some dancing. A few numbers in Nige got Ray to volunteer to sing “Living Doll” which we busked quite easily; though I chickened out on the double string guitar solo! We wigged up to do a fine Beatles Medley; only really caught Ray out on the change from “I Feel Fine” to “She Loves You”. Considering we only had the two voices and we had to switch harmonies around on the fly it went pretty well. I asked Nigel gently to do a country routine and he obliged leading us into “Crystal Chandelier - Your Cheating Heart”. This brought out the barn dancers and was well received. The slowies also filled the floor. I did “Raining in my Heart” mid-set and Nige did “Words” to finish. We had to judge the Easter Bonnet competition in the interval. Ray had stepped out for a blow so that left me and Nige and Tony (from the committee) to do the judging. Guided by Trevor we made the right selections and everyone was a winner! We resumed for longish final set with our dedication to Dave: “Under the Sun” Now, in the break Willie had asked for a quickstep; so we obliged at this point with Nige stepping up to sing “Lady is a Tramp”. Willie and his dance partner did a fine exhibition and he (and the band) got a great round of applause for it! I kept the ‘strictly dancing‘ theme going by calling for a waltz with: “Around the World”. Even though I’m still struggling to remember the chords as I try to concentrate on the vocal, this filled the floor and was well appreciated. I got my long lead out to do a Shadows Apache walk with a couple of girls on the toy guitars. While I was out there I was able to confirm I had done the right thing with the guitar sound which was right back on form. The rhythm section sounded good as well with a full bass filling the bottom of the soundscape and Ray’s drums filling the middle: with my chordy fills between lead guitar phrases, you didn’t didn’t miss the rhythm guitar. A class sound! We finished to huge applause. It took me a couple of minutes to struggle back onto the stage. Then we rocked it up with a selection including: “Searchers, Crazy Little Thing and Move It” Seeing them flag a bit I called for the “Halfway, Wonder of You, Sweet Caroline, Hi Ho” sequence. This filled the floor with sing-a-longers so well that I had to call “Amarillo, Hey Baby” to bring us to the final number: “Wonderful Tonight”. This also filled the floor and I was able to sign off the band to an enthusiastic response in the solo. We were delighted with the reception we got and banged out “Saw Her Standing There” to encore. As we packed up we got a lot good comments and Tony was keen to book us back for next years Easter do. I congratulated Ray on his fitting in, saying it seemed like he’d been with us for years not a couple of hours. The voices had stood up well from the long run of gigs and, if anything, had benefitted; with a noticeable increase in power and, in my case, I also felt I was achieving a smoother transition from chest to head voice. We completed load up with some help from the happy caravaners. As I set off home I reflected on the fact that a year ago Dave did most of the lead vocals and how, by stepping up to the plate in the tough times following Dave’s untimely demise, Nigel and I can now carry off fronting and lead singing at gigs to get successful outcomes. Got home about 1:15 am pretty tired and remained so for a couple of days. Poor Nige went down with the lurgi in the week and I ended up with ‘bad guts’. We do well for our age but we are not supermen!

Seacroft Caravan Park East Runton

Again had a good run over and arrived at 6:40pm to find Mick already setting up his Sonor acoustic kit. The previous evening we had discussed whether he should use the electronic kit at this gig because stage space is a bit tight and volume needs to be contained; but in the end we all concluded that it might create the wrong impression on Mick’s first appearance there with us. Mick and I moved the DJ set up to the edge of the stage to give Nigel some more room but in doing so we covered up the lighting controller – which would cause problems later! Nige arrived a bit later than usual. He had been working on a laptop solution to provide stage prompting of music and repertoire. Once set up he demo’d it to me and Mick and it seems ‘just the job’ - controlled by hot keys it presents repertoire lists and you can drill down into the music / lyric / arrangement for individual songs or sequences. I decided to experiment with a significant bass cut on the guitar sound to clear the low middle of our soundscape. We got changed into the Foot Tappery white shirts, black ties and black waistcoats. We had a final brief about keeping the volume down, Nige and I had set masters to about “3 minutes to 12” (i.e. just below halfway on the Bose T1). Then we took to the stage for an 8:15pm start in a well filled concert room with the usual opening sequence. The sound was good apart from Mick’s headset mic being a bit distant again. There were some kids on the dance floor and there wasn’t any dancing going on early on but the audience looked very attentive so I quickly switched into banter mode and Nigel and Mick joined in as well. We resurrected the previous night’s banter that ‘Nigel is worried about people using IMAC on his body when he’s asleep’ as the intro to “Beautiful Body”. So it quite an entertaining show as we ploughed on with a more easy listening show than the previous night with number such as: “Peaceful Easy Feelling”, “Raining in My Heart”, Ferry Cross Mersey”, “Daydream Believer” and some laid back rock’n’roll with “All Shook Up” and “Blue Suede Shoes”. I got the boys wigged up to do the Beatles. We did the whole thing and it got a very good response. We finished off the first set with “Words” to close the set and it too got a very good reception as Nigel hammed up the “I’ve forgot the words Mog” routine. I noticed that Mick joined in on a close above harmony in places, so I switched to the bass harmony - I must remember to try to get Mick to do that consistently. We opened set 2 with “Under The Sun” and “Tambourine Man”. The kids were less evident and we had a few adults up and dancing as we continued with the “Searchers”. The set progressed through a mix of material to peak with the “Wonder of You – Sweet Caroline – Hi Ho Silver” sing-a-longa session. As it was an early finish we only had a short break before the final set where we played a bit more of the dancey stuff to mixed success. But as we came to “Unchained” the floor filled with slow dancers. But they soon cleared the floor when they heard I would be doing a Shadows walk demonstration; no one volunteered to accompany me as we played “Apache” but it went down a bomb. While I was out front I was able to assess the instrumental sound and the guitar was definitely under powered compared to normal so I made a note to restore the bass setting to zero dB. So we called “Walk Alone” as the last number and encored with “Saw Her Standing There” to finish. We had worked hard all night and had been well received but this final few numbers got a really great reception. We were well pleased with it and proud of our versatility in reading the audience to earn it. Despite the slightly weak guitar sound, I think we achieved a very listenable balance at this gig and Mick had proved that a loud acoustic kit can be held back in volume to suit. The staff were also very complimentary saying we were by far the best act they have there. Then it was pack and load up on cold night. Nigel nearly forgot his phone and ended up hammering on the door to get Sarah back to open up so he could retrieve it! I set off home via Norwich and was home for 1am.

Woodlands Caravan Park Bodham

A new gig for us and we were doing it as “Sky High”. Nige had done it before and suggested we arrive closer to 7pm ‘cos they tend to open up a bit later than most places – can go on later to midnight ish. I set off at 5pm and, despite it being good Friday., the roads were very quiet and I made such good time to Fakenham, that I had to ease back to avoid being too early. Even so I still rolled up at the gig at just after 6:30pm. Mick was already there having had a similarly good run. Nige arrived about ten minutes later. It was that cold that we decided to sit in our cars for 5 minutes ‘til the doors opened. I was ready for a visit to the facilities and was quite relieved when Robin the manager opened up just before 7pm; and fully relieved a couple of minutes later after a trip to the boys room! It’s an easy load in straight onto the playing area on the dance floor then bags back in the vehicles. It didn’t take long to set up. Mick was on the headset mic again and it seemed OK as we tested things out. The room was filling up already so Nige put the musak on and we skipped soundcheck. A beer or so later we got changed into the “Sky High” black shirts, white ties and white waistcoats to open up with the usual “Foot Tapper, Just One Look, Heartbeat” opening sequence. It was a fair sound on-stage, but Mick’s headset mic was down in the mix. Nige tried to bring it up, but in truth, it needs to be close over the mouth (particularly when singing lead) to deliver the tone and volume needed. I think Mick believes that the bendy gooseneck won’t allow this, but we ought to look closely at how we can bend it to get it closer or abandon the concept. This problem of weak sound form Mick’s mic would continue to plague us throughout the evening. However, the room was full, some people were quite responsive to what we were doing and we got bits of banter going quite well, so it was turning out to be good gig despite the technical problem with the mic. The average age at this gig is quite a bit lower than we are used to so we were playing a more lively repertoire than usual. We played both versions of “How Long” (Eagles and Ace) and we slipped in “How Sweet It is”. These were a bit ragged because we aren’t used to playing them but it all went down well with the crowd. There wasn’t much dancing going on but people were definitely listening and appreciating the band. We opened the second set with “Hotel California” which went very well considering Mick hadn’t played it before with us. We had the pleasure of announcing an engagement and dedicating “Wonderful Tonight” to the couple. We played our theme tune “Sky High” which, surprisingly, a couple in the audience remembered was from Jigsaw. This was better performed than on Monday and we got good applause for what was intended as a high impact number. We played the long version of “Lying Eyes” and as we got a bit of dancing going we ran through a dancy sequence including songs such as: ”Crazy Little Thing”, “Hippy Hippy Shake” “Moon of Love”, “Mony Mony”, and “Johnny B Good”. We had a long final set to play and we rocked it up a bit to include “Walk of Life”, “Alright Now”, You Really Got Me” as well as some of the usual “Amarillo” stuff; but It was the slowies like “Unchained” that really filled the floor. Approaching midnight we announced the last number with “Walk Alone” which got a great sing-a-long response and earned an encore so we bashed out “Saw Her Standing There” to finish. As we packed up Nige had a word with the governor who said it was ‘excellent’ so we were pretty pleased as we packed up. It was as we were loading up that Nige spotted a toilet cistern graveyard that I couldn’t resist snapping! Had a quick run home with Nige on my tail to Swaffham. I finally got in about 2:15am.