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.
