The Glee Club on my Left!
My back had worsened since the last gig, possibly as a result of a final bout of the viral nastyness that had racked my frail body for the last few weeks – or is it ‘cos I am overweight? Nige had kindly agreed to give me a lift in at the gig so I gingerly loaded up and just sat down to a well earned cup of tea when I got a phone call from Mick to say he had gone down with vomiting bug and could we get a dep? So I got onto Nige who got onto Ray Royle who kindly agreed to stand in at very late notice. I arrived at the gig to find Nige and Ray and his missus Jackie parked up. With the help of Nige’s trolley we got loaded in without pain and by taking my time to set up I was able to avoid any more back problems. Ray has a nice Ludwig kit and he produced some of those sound absorbent sticks which would keep the volume down, always a key concern at this gig. We managed a beer before we got changed into the all black with white ties for an 8pm start up with “Foot Tapper”. Good on-stage sound and Ray was spot on with the drum feel. We got a good round of applause as we finished and I took a couple of minutes to introduce the band before we continued with “Just One Look”. Although the bass harmony was missing, vocally it was fine for this gig and Ray must have had a good feel for the dance beat, ‘cos (unusually) we had quite a few up and dancing from the off! After “Heartbeat” we got into the “Walk Right Back – When Will I Be Loved” sequence and the dance floor remained busy. It was going so well I threw in a solo in “Walk Right Back” (Nige and I have a misunderstanding about timing to the F chord in the solo. Probably me putting in an extra couple of bars but I have to do it that way to fit in with Graham in the Checkmates - I doubt the audience notices though). Out on the dance floor there were clearly some attempts to form up for a barn dance, but I thought we’d try a waltz next with “Around the World”. A few got up to dance it, but a lot more sang along with it so it went down rather well. We got Ray to do “Living Doll” and again you could see the audience beginning to form up for a barn dance, so we called for “Crystal Chandeliers” as we finished and that filled the floor for the barn dance. Nige took it on to “Rambling Rose” and we had a great reception. Ray misheard my introduction of “Move It” as a Sir Cliff song and opened up with “Do You Wanna Dance”! We fell into line and it went down pretty well – I switched to bass harmony in the choruses and it sounded just fine. We did fit “Move It” in later and it went well with the dancers as usual. Next up I called for “Blue Suede Shoes” but they dancers were taking a rest so we brought that to a conclusion and set about a slightly country feel version of “Take it Easy”. This went really well: we filled the floor, there were quite a few singing along and even though we only had my and Niges vocals it sounded pretty good. Even so I was surprised at the warmth of the applause at the end – fantastic! I was about to call the Beatles when Nige pointed out we were out of time. Confidence was high so we wrapped the set up with “My Girl” which Nige sang really well and it filled the floor and got warm applause as we finished. The bingo man thanked the band and once more we got a got a great round of applause. As the bingo started up we took to the bar for a drink and who was playing in there but ‘Bobby Graham’. He was on a break so we had a bit of a reminisce about poor old Dave and the music scene generally. After the bingo we resumed to play 2 more one hour sets as directed by Darren (on the new committee) to take it to 11:50ish. We opened with “Under The Sun” and that went well. I gave “Mr Tambourine Man” an airing and that got the ‘glee club’ on my left singing along nicely. At this point Ray did his joke about appearing on ‘who wants to be a millionaire” with a question on counting rabbits - and that went down well. As we got going with “The Searchers”; once again Ray had the timing slightly laid back which was just right for this club and the dance floor filled. We switched the vocal lines around to compensate for Mick’s absence and it sounded fine; in fact it was going so well we carried on into “Do It Again” which worked well enough with just two voices and kept them dancing. After “Halfway”, Nige called for “Lying Eyes” as a barn dance. They all formed up nicely so I did an extended version and once again it sounded fine with just the two voices. We ploughed on through a typical second set sequence. As we got to “Lets Dance” I dabbled with the guitar synth to set up an organ sound. It worked with this dancey crowd but it would be interesting to hear if it works in a more listeney environment. When we got to “Sweet Caroline” Darren and his mate stood up in the chorus and did a rude answerback which was quite funny and amused the crowd. After a rousing “Hi Ho”, Nige did a good “Wonder of You” which they all joined in with. Then we wrapped this set up with “Words” which filled the floor nicely despite my unsureness over my harmonies – I ended up trying to do bits of the bass and hi harmony and not nailing either. After the break we resumed for a final hour of mainly dancey stuff. Surprisingly a lot of the audience stayed, there must have been a late bus? The band was on form so we tried out “Summer of 69” which worked surprisingly well at low volume. We announced our last number with Nige doing a rousing “Walk Alone” which garnered an encore – so we finally finished off with “Saw Her Standing There”. Quite a few came up at the end and said they’d enjoyed the show and would be back on the Sunday. Ray had to pack his drums up because he had arranged a practice session on the Sunday. Ray had fitted in just great and despite my bad back, Nige’s chest infection and Ray coming in at the last minute it had been a very good night for the band; and importantly - we had enjoyed it! I was tired on the way home but it was a quick run so I was home for 1:20am
