It had been been very cold and snowing so much of the UK has been bogged down in traffic disruption. A few inches of snow had fallen in parts of Norfolk so I decided to plan for a slow journey and set off at 5pm in the S-Max. Although there wasn’t actually much snow in Suffolk, it was still slow going to Thetford. But once I was on the A11 I could let the car have its head. By Wymondham it was still good going but I was now gaining time so I eased back for the rest of the journey, timing my arrival at the gig at precisely 6:28pm as I had promised the boys! Nige arrived shortly after and we soon got the gear in the hall and the door shut to keep the cold out. They have a very efficient heating system here and we were soon basking in warm conditions as we inspected the stage. It had been tidied up since our last appearance and parked on the right there was a large wooden sub-stage that Nige and I shifted onto the newly refurbished dance floor (hope we didn’t scratch it) to act as an apron for the main stage. Looking around the club it was clear that new carpets had also been laid and the place looked tidy and well lit. So we were beginning to hope for a good evening as we set up. I set up forward on the apron leaving plenty room for Nige and Greg to set up on the main stage. We heard Greg hammering on the door so we let him in (he’d been delayed with credit card problems at a filling station), but he soon got set up. We didn’t sound check as a band, but just by bashing away individually it was clear that the curtains round the back and sides of the stage were highly sound absorbent. This made for a very clean and dry sound, but we had to bring the volume up on the Bose to compensate for sound lost to the curtains. I was still not completely happy so I gave a bit of top and bottom boost to the mic sound as well. We managed another beer and I had a word with PJ the promoter about the playing times. He wanted an 8:40pm start and we were to stop for bingo at 9:30pm. He was optimistic we would have some people in and he briefed me to inform them about the newly refurbished dance floor to get them to use it! Nige came back from a smoke to report that some drunken youths had been evicted from the other bar for being ‘leery’ and they had damaged an invalid scooter on the way out. I quickly nipped out to check our cars were OK – they were! As we went to get changed (into the white shirts) there were still only about 10 people in the room so it didn’t bode well. But we got underway - with “Flingel Bunt for a change. This went well and Greg got the drum breaks pretty darn good in the middle. We had a good on-stage sound and the audience looked like they enjoyed it as we got some good applause from them. That set the pattern for set 1. No dancing but whatever we did we got good applause from this small audience, and we even got some response to our banter. We went on to play a typical bantery set 1. After “Peaceful Easy Feelin” they gave us a big round of applause so I made a note that they like the Eagles. A couple of numbers later I called for “Take It Easy”. Oh dear – we hadn’t done it for a couple of weeks and I got hopelessly lost in verse 3 and ended up doing an ad-lib repeat of verse 1 into the coda. Still the boys followed me very well and the audience gave up a good round of applause! We ran towards an on-time finish with a well received “Beatles Medley” and closed the set with “Words” which did actually get a few up to dance. We came off to rousing applause from an audience of about 12 including PJ the promoter. Surprisingly, folks were keen to compliment us on an entertaining set of music they liked, that was well played and sung. PJ said the Beatles was excellent and his mate said that I sounded like John Lennon - can’t be bad! One wag pointed out that “Words” was actually covered by Boyzone not Westlife but he also said we did a great job! Bingo went on for a while and as we sat through it the subject of band plans for the New Year came up. As 2010 had progressed Nige and I had sub-consciously avoided taking any commitments for 2011 because I think our confidence had been rocked in the Summer when Ray left and, after several years on this circuit, I was getting tired and thought I needed a break. Jacqui’s sister’s illness was the ‘last straw’ for me – Jacqui and I would need to spend some quality time with her next year. Nige and I both agreed that Greg coming into the band had been a breath of fresh air and we were now a lot happier with the musical state of play. But, on the other hand, quite a few of the clubs we were playing weren’t getting the audiences necessary to support a band and the booking prospects for the band next year looked dire. My view was that Greg and Nige would be best served looking for permanent positions in another band/s - although it didn’t look like there was much in the way of opportunity in the current gigging climate? Perversely, there were a few clubs (e.g The British Legion) that really liked our band and would miss the Foot Tappers / Sky High. I left it that, if Greg and Nige hadn’t found regular work by the time I returned from New Zealand in March, then I was up for playing some gigs if that worked for them. We would, of course, recommend Greg if anyone asked for a reference. After this downbeat discussion we then had to psyche ourselves up to play set 2! We opened up with “Under the Sun” then progressed through “Tambourine Man into the Searchers”. We were playing well and the small audience were still responding well. We played for about 40 minutes to finish with our usual set 2 closing sequence of “Halfway to Caister – Wonder of You – Sweet Caroline”. Something weird has been happing in “Sweet Caroline” the last couple of performances. We start to slow and rally just before we go into the guitar solo? This time I forced the pace a bit but it was still a bit messy for that few bars. Anyway, playing quality was now academic because after giving the band a great round of applause, our audience came up to thank us for great performance but they had to leave now. They went to great lengths to explain that it was not our fault, the club had some ‘issues’ to sort out and we were not to blame or take it badly. In the break I asked the bar man if it was worth continuing to play. He said yes – because the bar was reasonably full and they were listening to the band. So we resumed to play to an empty room. We decided to air some rarely played songs starting with “Travel Lodge California”. As it hadn’t been played for a while I was delighted that we got through our cut down version of “Hotel California” so well. Next up was the Everlys “Price of Love”. I thought this went well with a driving beat and we had the vocals pretty well synched even if some parts really tested my ability to sing so high without falsetto (up to Ab). Next Nige did a great “I Can Tell”. After my choice of “Rip It Up” we did Greg’s request of “Uptown Girl”. Nige sang and played it well and Greg obviously knew what he was doing, but I let the side down with some muffed chords in the middle sections. Still overall it was surprisingly good – maybe we should pop it in the show for the last few gigs? “All Right Now” went well and after the guitar solo Nige and I left Greg to play a drum solo for several minutes. While we were sat out front we could hear the quality of drum sound – it was very good, but the bass drum sound (miked up through my Bose) was outstanding. Nige and I came back on to play the final phrase of the solo and the last verse. It was time to wrap up and I volunteered “Alright Mama” to give the guitar solo an airing. So we finished in reasonably good heart to no applause or reaction, but the job was done and we had been paid. We could pack up quickly without dealing with people. Even so I was a bit slow taking the gear down compared to Nige and Greg – blame it on the sciatica! The boys did help me to load and we were soon set to go. It was very cold as I set off. There were some snow flurries on the way home and I took it relatively steady. Even so I got home about 1:30pm - not too bad considering. The snow is much worse North of the A 11 and Nige reported that his journey had been colourful with lots of blue lights attending mishaps.
