I still have a cough and feeling a bit weak but Carl elected to come with me to help with the gear. We set off in cold, gloomy, overcast conditions at 5pm and made good time to Swaffham where we joined the A47 for the next few miles North West to Narborough. The Community Centre is well signposted and we arrived just before 6pm and asked a lady behind the bar to show us the way into the hall. Here I met up with Val, the organiser. We got the door opened and had just started to get the gear in when Nige arrived. Nige brought news that there had been a murder in North Walsham and a man in his thirties was being held?? We agreed to give it a while before we contacted Greg to make sure it wasn’t him! (I found out later that the victim was Dave’s old card playing mate George, killed by his nephew apparently!!) The stage here is big but tatty. It’s a big, reverberant room and we set up Greg’s bass drum through my Bose to give a bit more depth to our sound. We soon got set up and tested out and with so much room I set up my PRS 12 string as well. The 4 of us then enjoyed a sit down cold meal: pate starter, ham salad and jelly and ice cream to follow – I did pass on the latter as my belly is getting big! We selected the away team dressing room to get changed in and, as it was a chilly day, we had the luxury of putting the heating on in there. After the Chairman’s speech we took to the stage in our black’n’white shirts looking like a team of waiters. Greg has a black tie and waistcoat now! We started up with “Foot Tapper” the sound was OK but I sensed we might be a bit loud, However, we got a fair response, so I introduced the band and we continued with “Just One Look”. The on-stage sound wasn’t that good and somehow I managed to mess this up by going to the end early – sorry Nige. I dropped the guitar volume a bit for “Heartbeat” and that improved the sound a little. We settled into a typical set 1 adding “Around the World” as a waltz and bit of country in the form of “Crystal Chandeliers” complete with Nigels false beginning with his ‘horsey’ Irish contender for the Eurovision song contest. The audience was a bit hard to read: we’d fill the floor occasionally then lose them with a similar song. But, by and large, they were appreciative and responded in the right places. We brought the set to an end with the “Beatles and Ferry”. In the break I was introduced to Pat who really liked the band and discussed the possibility of us doing a charity gig in aid of MS for a reduced fee sometime. I started set 2 on the PRS 12 string and we opened up with “Under the Sun”. Quite a nice jangly sound I thought so I called for “Take it Easy”. It’s quite a handful on the 12 string but we got through in good order. We got going on the “Searchers” next and by the end we had the dance floor reasonably filled, so Nige took us on through “Do It Again”. As I changed guitar the audience faded away and we ended up playing a goodish attempt at “Love Potion No 9” to just a handful of dancers. As it was quiet on the dance floor we set about a request for Apache by getting Hannah and Lisa to come to the front to do the Shadows walk. They were quite shy but their 5 minutes of ‘fame’ did them good I think. It got a great reception anyway! It took me a couple of minutes to get back on stage and ready to go with “All Shook Up” which went very well; but the dancers looked tired so I took us into the “Halfway - Wonder of You” sequence which had them all slow dancing and singing along. I followed up with “Hi Ho” to keep them singing; then, as we were close to time, we wrapped up with “Words” which was also very well received. After a 10 minute break we resumed with “Do You Wanna Dance”, then took them through “Amarillo – Hey Baby – Hippy Hippy Shake – Pretty Woman” to keep a party atmos going. We did “Unchained” as a mid-set slowey request and then set about our closing sequence with: ”Lets Dance – Mony Mony” and “Johnny B Goode”. This elicited shouts for ‘more’ so I asked if they wanted a slow or a fast one? ‘Both’ they said. But we were close to music license stop time at 11:45pm so we signed off with Greg’s choice of “Born to be Wild”. Pack and load wasn’t too bad with Carl’s help. Good job too because it was raining. Greg and Nige followed me in convoy as I searched out the A47 and we all went our separate ways as we approached Swaffham. Got home just after 1am, pretty tired and still coughing. The next day was Ms J and my Ruby Anniversary. We hadn’t arranged anything, but Carl and Claire surprised us by taking us out to lunch in Bury.
