Norwich British Legion

Darren had rang up in the week to let us know that we were to play in the bar because the concert hall was being let out for a private party. Actually I thought that would be a good change for us. Set off about 5:25pm and had a quiet run over getting to the gig at 6:40pm to find Nigel there already, It was a lovely warm sunny day and the sliding windows into the bar were open so we just took the gear through them and straight onto the small stage. Greg rolled up and for this gig he was using his blue glitter DW kit. The stage is deep but not that wide so Greg set up at the back. Because there is a bit of brick work each side of the ‘drum alcove’ we had to set the Bose a bit in front of him. This would normally mean most of the sound would radiate to the front and the drummer would be hard pressed to hear what was going on, but, as it happened, Greg reported he could hear it pretty well as we tested the set up. On the other hand, Nige reported blocked ears and I had a tickly throat so the older boys weren’t in best shape. Interestingly, I could hear Nige’s mic really well at set up but not so well later when we were playing – could this be an artefact of his blocked ears I was to ask myself? Nige did some liaison with the committee man in charge and it turned out there would be no bingo and we were to play 4 sets between 8pm and 11:45pm = quite a long night we would have to pace carefully. We had a welcome couple of beers and got changed into the black shirts with white ties and black waistcoats so we were ready to go on time. Despite the absence of bingo, quite a few of our regular ‘fans’ had come along and the bar was about 80% full as we took to the stage a couple of minutes past 8. Greg was holding back on the volume a bit and I thought we had a good instrumental mix and a nice rhythm as we opened up with “Foot Tapper”. We got a good round of applause and, after introductions of the band we continued with “Just One Look, Heartbeat and the Everlys Walk Right Back”. For me we had a bit of a rare sound problem. I can normally hear Nige’s mic quite well, but for some reason it was well down in my mix. The audience seemed happy though? In the end I did ask him to bring his mic up, but he has blocked ears so it took a while to get through! Bur as we did “Peaceful Easy Feelin” he seemed to have got the message and the mix improved. From then on we were set for a good night. We played a good mix of material, there was a lot of singing along (thanks to the glee club attending) and good applause but not much dancing. Not even any waltzers for “Around the World” and no rock’n’roll dancing? I gave “Daydream Believer” an airing to keep the sing-a-long atmos going. But, after “Ferry”, we did the Beatles and that brought up an attractive young lady to do some 60’s dancing. Greg has the changes sorted in this now and Nige and I know what we are singing on “Nowhere Man” which I think works well with Nige singing the bass line, me on the lead line and the harmoniser just doing one voice above me - it makes for a good 3 part harmony in the accapella bit. Overall this medley is much better than a few weeks ago and it got a good reception. We wrapped up with “Words” which perversely did bring some dancers up. We took a bit of a break; Julie, the young lady who danced, came over to introduce herself and her mum. She’d seen Nige depping with “Midnight” at Arkwrights where she works the bar. She said we were great and would go down good at Arkwrights. We opened up Set 2 in good heart with “Under the Sun, “Tambourine Man and the Searchers”. These got a good response and some dancers so we switched to rock’n’roll with “Move It” and that filled the floor neatly. Nige carried it on with “Lets Have a Party” in which I finally got the chord sequence right; and I continued with “All Shook Up” to keep a good rocking atmosphere going. I slowed it down to do “Halfway” with Greg leading us through the intro’ accents correctly. The ‘glee club’ was in good form singing along and continued as an angelic choir as we followed up with “Wonder of You”. Spotting Darren in the crowd, I called for “Sweet Caroline” to finish and Darren obliged with his ‘bitchy’ answer backs – hilarious! We took another break. A drummer mate of Greg’s (from a heavy rock band) had arrived and said what a great sound we had and what a pleasure it was to see an audience out enjoying themselves rather than starting fights! We opened Set 3 with Julie’s request for “Take It Easy”. Despite my sore throat I thought we got it going the best yet following our re-arrangement with me on lead vocal and added hi harmoniser line. Interestingly, it got a good crowd of dancers up so Greg must have had the rhythm spot on. I think it just needs a bit of attention to the intro which the drummer should play accented tacet? We continued with more rock’n’roll and I gave “Rip It Up” its debut: I thought it went well for a first time. Greg caught the right tempo and swing and, with a very good turn out on the dance floor, I extended it a verse or two. Nige did “Everybpdy Hurts” as a request to close the set and this went down exceedingly well with a massive round of applause at the end. Darren came up in the interval and said he was very impressed with our rendition of the REM song. He didn’t know we could play more modern stuff and, the way he saw the club developing, it would definitely work in the bar – we shouldn’t feel inhibited! We only had about 40 minutes to do for the final set. We opened up with “Do You Wanna Dance” and filled the floor; we kept it going with “Amarillo – Hey Baby, Hi Ho”; but, as the dancers tired, we announced a request for “Apache” and I went out front with my Hank glasses on to do the walk. Although I made a few tiny errors, it must say it certainly sounded good out front and as we ended we earned another massive round of applause – very satisfying. After a few more numbers we ran into our close sequence with “Unchained” and encored with Johnny B Good finishing about 11:55, a few minutes over time. Overall a great evening. The only snag was we now had to pack up the gear. It was still warm and still outside as we loaded up - lovely. I made my way home in good heart despite the sniffley sore throat. I got in about 1:30am.