Ms J decided to come along. We had a good run over in cold, slightly damp conditions in the S-Max to Norwich. As per the last few visits I missed the turning for Hotblack Road but this time when I turned back I missed it again; so I came at it the other way off the Dereham Road finally getting to the gig at 6:45pm to find Nigel already parked there. As we got out to say hello, Richard the promoter arrived to open the club. We got the gear in quickly to keep the heat in the hall. It’s a boxy stage and I set about putting a blanket and the gear covers around the back and corners, and the acoustic tiles over the front valance, to absorb some of the adverse sound reflections at this gig. By the time Greg arrived I was set up on the right with the Bose well back. As I started my soundcheck Nige had a listen out front. He thought it was too quiet and he and Greg inched my Bose forward to give it more dispersion. Even though Nige was chesty on the night, I was let off shifting things ‘cos my sciatic leg is still troublesome - one of the benefits of being the ‘old man’ in the band! Satisfied with set up we settled down for a beer when Jen arrived with her daughters Suzy and Theresa along with Dave’s ex wife Valisha, their daughter Laura and her man Pete.
This was an excellent boost to our audience making well over 30 in total. We got changed into the white shirts and took to the stage a few minutes late to open with “Flingel Bunt”. The on-stage sound was poor as expected and I had to fiddle a bit with my settings through the first few numbers. Alan Cannell and Hilly arrived a few numbers in. Unbeknown to Greg, part of Alan’s reason for visiting was to check him out as a potential drummer for his band ‘Shake rattle and Roll’. Meanwhile we continued with a relatively dancey set 1. In fact the only mid-set slowey we did was: “Ferry Cross the Wensum”. After the first few numbers we had quite a few dancers up: these were people who knew how to dance (particularly the modern jive) and I adjusted the set to cope; bringing in “All Shook Up” and “Rockin’ Around the Xmas Tree” (complete with Santa hats) to keep things rock’n’roll. We followed up with a wigged “Beatles Medley” getting a big round of applause. Things were going reasonably well and I slipped in “Take It Easy”, which got a good response. Then we finished with “Words”. During the break we had a bit of socialising to do: the younger ladies were knocking a few drinks back and were dressed up Christmassy: with glowing earrings, antlers etc. While we were off, I was approached by one of the dancing chaps who had a few requests. Great - we could do most of them and I promised we would slip them in the next set. We opened with Raymond Frogatt’s “Under the Sun” dedicated to Dave. This was well received and we carried on straight into “Tambourine Man”. This too went down well and we got stuck into a good performance of the “Searchers Medley” before starting a sequence of requests starting with “Love Potion No Nine”. We played this close to perfect then carried on with another request for “Brown Eyed Girl” in a slightly cha cha cha rhythm. After a little break while we established the key, we continued with yet another request for “Under the Boardwalk” which filled the floor nicely. Next up was a relatively unsuccessful attempt to do “White Xmas” in C in which Nige and myself were confused as to who was singing Bob or Bing’s parts. Must discuss it before the next outing! I took it up a bit tempo wise with “Move It”. This filled the floor again and we followed up with another request for “Rock Around The Clock”. We continued with the two requested Johnny Kidd and Pirates numbers: “Shakin All Over and I Can Tell”. These went pretty well and kept the dancers going but we only had a few minutes left on my set timing so we went into our usual set 2 closing sequence with: “Halfway to Paradise, Wonder of You and Sweet Caroline”. Despite my pushing it, we again started to rally before the final guitar break in “Sweet Caroline” – we managed to look around and I think Greg has got it now! We came off to great applause and took a long break for the raffle. The band didn’t win but I one of our band of supporting girls did. The girls had enjoyed several drinks by now and were getting ‘quite lively’. Greg enjoyed a long chat with Theresa and Jacqui did a bit of counselling for most of them. Richard came over as we resumed for the final set, he requested “Johnny B Goode” and could we keep it going to 11:30pm. No problem I said and we opened up with Sir Cliff’s “Do You Wanna Dance”. Greg got the start and tempo spot on and the dancers filled the floor. We carried on with “Rip It Up, Hippy Hippy Shake and Hi Ho Silver Lining” to keep things going then I called for: “All Right Now” ‘cos I had the guitar FX already set up. This went well and kept quite a few on the floor. Next up was “Pretty Woman” dedicated to the ladies. With confidence high we had a go at “Uptown Girl”. At the last moment I realised I would need the music for this and was busy turning pages as Nige and Greg got underway. I ended up joining in without the music and, we were soon at the dreaded middle section. I got hopelessly lost and played some howlers – sorry boys! About halfway through I got on the right page and we played the second half of the song in good order. Good job most people had had a drink and didn’t notice too much! Actually, I looked up, and I could see the audience had thinned out quite a bit after the raffle, and we were close to time, so I called for “Johnny B Goode” to finish. As I started the intro riff, Richard came out to have a dance. We rocked along nicely and as we ended there were a few lacklustre shouts for more. But there weren’t many paying people left so we decided to call it a night. Theresa and Laura came up and asked if they could sing something, so I said OK and left them to it on my mic. They’ve got nice voices but had had too much to drink to do anything proper. Meanwhile we got changed. The word had got out that the band was splitting up and we had to field a few discussions from well wishers as to why and when. Richard said it was a pity because we were such a good band. Apparently, in the early days of the club’s re-launch Dave had helped him a lot with ideas and advice and he was grateful to the band for a great re-launch a few years ago. We finally got packed and loaded at just after 12:30am. I handed out Xmas prezzies for the boys, thanking them for their loyalty (and saying don’t get me anything please lads!) Greg needed to be directed to a garage to fuel up ‘cos he was on empty. Jacqui and I got away next. We had a quiet run home in the cold with occasional patches of freezing fog. Finally got to bed about 2am. We have a weekend off now before we have to all pull together for the last few gigs.
