Seacroft - East Runton

Another very pleasant day as I set off for the journey over via Swaffham. I had a good run, arriving at 6:35 a bit ahead of schedule. I got the barrier key fob and had just parked up when Nige arrived so i let him in and we started to unload. Nige was feeling a bit rough with a tight chest and I was fighting the cold that had taken hold on the Friday, so we were pacing ourselves. When Greg arrived (having been to West Runton first?) I helped in with his ‘body bag’ and a wag from audience commented that he knew what was in there - ‘the lead singer’ I quipped! I started to set up on the right and was quite surprised by the amount of room there despite the disco – Greg is a compact drummer to work with. Fortified with a beer we soon got set up and went off to get changed into the black’n’white. Nige fixed the lighting by wedging a mic on to a switch. There were only about 20 in the room as we opened up with the usual sequence, but we got a good response from those that were there, so we dropped in to an easy listen, bantering mode which went down very well with this small audience. The early set slowey was “Phoenix” which successfully set the mood low volume and jazzy, adding a hint of sophisticated variety to our show. We got a couple of ladies up and dancing to “Peaceful Easy Feelin” and I soon found an excuse to do “Apache”. As I thought – one of the ladies came up to do the walk. Mind you she had her own ideas on how to do it; dancing very close to me and knocking me off the notes. But it was all in good fun and we got quite a reaction as we finished. “Blue Suede, Great Balls and All Shook Up” did the rock’n’roll business as usual. We did an entertaining Beatles and finished the set with “Ferry” for a change. The voices were holding up well considering, but another beer was most welcome at this point. We did quite a bit of glad handing in the break but our audience had dwindled a little as we resumed for set 2. We opened with “Under the Sun” and then on into the “Searchers” and “Take it Easy”. These all got a good reception, particularly from a couple on my right who seemed very enthusiastic about the band taking on the more complex pieces. We brought the set to a close with “Sweet Caroline” and we got a very good reception from the half a dozen or so left. It was just after 10pm as I jokingly announced we would be playing on to 3 in the morning on our return. But our remaining audience all came up to say variations on the theme ‘they had to be off for an early night’! It looked unlikely we would have anyone to play to in Set 3. In fact I had an interesting discussion with the couple on my right. He turned out to be a bass player in a band based in Burton on Trent. He was most appreciative of what we had been doing, saying we had a great sound, excellent musicianship and a really good, friendly on-stage attitude – all of which he had enjoyed. He was particularly impressed by the ‘crisp, clear sound’ we got from the Bose pa. By now it was 10:20 pm and Nige spotted Sarah so he went over to see how long she wanted us to continue. Sarah said she thought we had completed our show for the night anyway (it turns out we were due to finish no later than 10:30pm). So, Sarah was happy and there was no need to play anymore. Nige and I were relieved because we both felt under the weather and my voice in particular had started to croak up quite badly. We got packed up and had just started loading when Michele arrived on her way back from dropping Harriet off on the ‘night club train’ to Norwich. I think she was surprised we had finished already but we were able to exchange news as we loaded up. It turns out Dan was doing two gigs this weekend but he would be back from the US in early October for a few weeks – so I agreed to meet up on my return from Spain in mid-October. I set off home via Norwich and made good time getting in before 1 am.