Back from Spain and the bad back had cleared up nicely. I hadn’t played at this club before, so I Googled and streetwalked it to be clear as to where it was. Set off about 5:10pm and all went well until just after Thetford where the A11 was closed and I was diverted on country roads to East Harling and then back onto the A11. It was getting dark as I approached Norwich and by the time I got to the Wroxham Road it was a dark evening. But the street lights and signage was good enough to get me onto Blue Boar Lane without missing a turn and the Club was an easy find. Despite losing a bit of time en route I was first there at 6:30pm on a chilly evening. The bar fellow showed me the back way in to load straight on to the small stage and I had just got a couple of things in when Nige appeared. Greg rolled up a few minutes later and we soon had the gear in. Although the stage is small it is deep. We had to place the Bose inside some low ceiling beams but right at the back so Greg had plenty of room to set up in front.
Greg had brought along a TAMA gigging kit he had acquired in the week. Nice looking kit coloured ‘girly pink’ I suggested, but Greg would only respond to ‘manly pastel red’. Set up went well until I forgot to test out the reverb. When I did remember, the mains lead to the reverb unit had pulled out, so I had to fiddle in the back of the rack – uttering an expletive that shocked Nigel! We had a beer and enjoyed some of Nige’s pictures from his recent tour with ‘Blitz’ – a gig at the Oasis Scratby actually! Tom the promoter came up to agree times etc. He said it was likely to be a quiet night ‘cos the club’s advert had failed to appear in the paper. However, he had done a big ‘Sky High’ poster in the club, but he didn’t expect many members to show up. We got changed into the black outfits – an easy decision ‘cos Greg had forgotten his white shirt cuff links. There were only about 10 in the room as we opened up at 8:35pm with “Foot Tapper”. The curtains at the back and sides of the stage absorbed quite a bit or extraneous noise and the on-stage sound was very good. The audience seems to like it as well as we carried on with a very typical set 1. I must admit my bantering was a bit over relaxed and obscure but we got some good response from the small audience which had grown to about 15 by the time we wrapped up with “Words”. After a short break we opened set 2 with “Under the Sun, Tambourine Man and the Searchers”. We actually had a couple of dancers up for a while during this session. Next up was “Apache”. I was putting on my Hank glasses and turned round to face the audience when, much to my surprise, I found Nige had coaxed a couple of blokes up to do the walk with the toy guitars. They were a bit ‘cak footed’ but they played along with the routine perfectly. While I was out front I noticed we had a really classy band sound (I had taken a bit of top off the guitar earlier and it definitely paid off). The ‘Walk’ went down just great with the audience giving us huge applause. Thinking we had broken the ice we settled into playing some safe, singalong rock’n’roll with “Move It and All Shook Up”. Sing-a-long was good but dancing remained very sparse so I called for “Halfway” to get us back into entertainment mode. This went very well with Nige doing his manly backing singing and getting the blonde wig for his troubles. We followed up with “Wonder of You” and “Sweet Caroline” which were very well received. I called for “Wonderful Tonight” to finish and a few couples did venture up to have a slow dance. In the break we had a request for a ‘Sir Cliff’ song, so we opened set 3 with “Do You Wanna Dance”. We tried to get some party dance atmos going with “Amarillo – Hey Baby – Hi Ho – Hippy Hippy Shake” but, although they were very well received, no dancing? We even gave “Summer of 69” a go but still no dancing; not even for “Unchained” Nige’s voice was getting a bit shot but he’s a trouper. Fortunately, it was approaching time so we settled into a finish with “Johnny B Goode” and encored with “Walk Alone” - we came off to some very warm applause. Actually Tom was very pleased with the band, its sound, our easy going entertainment and repertoire. He was just a bit sorry for us that there weren’t more there. Greg got an accolade being picked out as a quality drummer fitting in real well with the band. Tom said he’d like to give us another go as the ‘Foot Tappers’ with better promotion. The club can finance the occasional quiet night, but It does seem that a following is needed to play some of these Norwich gigs successfully. We packed and loaded and got on the road by about 12:30am and I was home for just after 1:30am. Voice a bit shot the next day.
