Sunny and hot again. Ms J offered to accompany me on this one. We got away a bit late but had a very good run, so we were at the club at about 6:45pm to meet up with Nige and Ray. I set up the harmoniser and talked to Nige about parts in “Nowhere Man”. It turns out we both thought each other was singing Mick’s part. So we agreed I would drop from the high line to sing Mick’s old lead line. Not being that familiar with the lead line and, as there was no one in the club and also to set the harmoniser, I casually tried it out a few times. The voice was still a bit tight after the previous night but I soon got the gist of the line. Apparently Ray wasn’t that impressed but I think he missed the points that a) we were addressing his criticism of the previous night by dropping my line and letting the harmoniser do the high line b) you are bound to be a bit tight before you warm up and c) the hot and humid conditions do leave your vocal chords a bit dry. People started to arrive after 8pm and by showtime at 8:45 the room was about quarter full. We got off to a good start with a typical set 1 repertoire and it was well received by ‘our kind of audience’. The on stage sound was fine, the bantering was working well (Ms J reported later that people were listening and were amused by the band repartee), and the continuity was good. We kept close to time finishing the set at 9:30 with “Ferry” and a bigger audience than when we started = about 70% full. Nige knew quite a few people including a lady he hadn’t seen for decades. After a short break we came back on for the second set. Again continuity and banter and audience response was good and we started to see a few dancers on the sloweys. We stopped at 10:30pm for the raffle - but it turned out to be not on! Nige worked the crowd well in the break and we resumed at about 10:55pm for the third set. This was a lot more dancey and we picked and mixed our way through with good continuity to keep the dance floor full. Nige took on “Unchained” and it filled the floor and then we cruised into the finish with “Hippy Hippy Shake” and closed with “Wonderful Tonight”. Following some shouts for more we encored with “Johnny B Goode” It was 11:45pm and this got a rousing response with lots of shouts for more. Nige and I were about to oblige when Ray left the stage, so we had to mumble an apology and switch off. Nige and I were not happy about this. It’s not just the ‘glory’ of being appreciated, but some of these clubs like the band to respond to cement a ‘good night out’ atmosphere. We accept that there are some venues that don’t like you to carry on; but this isn’t one of them! So that was a bit of a downer on an otherwise excellent night. In fact as we worked the crowd and packed up, several people commented on how good the band had been. Nige undertook to discuss the encore issue with Ray and once loaded we all parted amicably enough. We had a good run home getting in about 2:30am. I was not as tired as the previous night, but a little disillusioned with the encore issue nevertheless. Despite our band values of mutual respect and tolerance, I sense there won’t be an easy compromise.
