Sheringham Tyneside

6 inches of snow in the week had paralysed UK transport. The weather still wasn't good with sub-zero temperatures and more snow forecast. I decided to allow 2 hours and set off via Swaffham. The journey to Thetford was OK but once I turned off the A11 there was frozen snow on the road and speeds dropped. I was stuck in a queue of slow moving traffic down to about 20 mph for most of the run to Swaffham. Then, losing most of the traffic, I expected a faster run to Fakenham, bit no; I was slipping and sliding, so it was only a steady 30 mph. That was the pattern on to Holt when things improved a lot and I could get up to 50mph; arriving at the gig at 6:45 to find Nigel and Alex already there with a similar tale to tell. We were using a mix of gear, using my Bose L1 with Nige's T1 as the PA. Guitar through the Mesa Lonestar and Bass through Nige's Behringer PA into a single 15 EV cabinet. We put the Bose right at the back, but it took quite a bit of equalisation to get a good sound. The guitar sound was OK, if a bit thin because I took some more bass off it to counter the boom in the corner. Nige wasn't happy with the bass guitar sound and we eventually concluded that we would go back to all Bose next time, but pay particular attention to using the parametric EQ to filter out the low-mid boomyness. There were only a few in by 8pm but duty called so we got changed into the all black with red Xmas ties ready for an 8:30pm start. Just as we went on I could see snow coming down again outside. We played a usual sort of set to the small audience, I dropped in “Rockin Around the Xmas Tree” and we did a bit more rock'n'roll than usual. The sound wasn't good on stage and we were a bit untogether, but going down well enough with the 20 or so in the room. As we got stuck into the Beatles, I could see out the window the snow coming down heavily outside but also the arrival of the Salvation Army. As they came in we stopped the medley expecting them to do a tune: but no they were going to have some sausage rolls, mince pies and coffee first, so we resumed playing through to the end of our set ending with “Words”. Then the very good 'Sally Ann' band did their bit and the club did their raffle, giving us quite a break before set 2. One couple took a liking to the band and we aimed our set at keeping them amused and dancing. Then we had a short break before the final half hour set. After we closed, our little fan club came over and said how much they enjoyed the band and when would we be playing again. We got packed up quickly conscious of the continuing snowfall; actually it eased off as we loaded up. The guvnor told Nige he had enjoyed the band, not our fault there weren't many there and he'd see us in the new year. We got ready for the off. I decided to go back through Norwich. I got away first and by keeping going I was able to get up the hill out of Sheringham coming to a skiddy halt across the A149 at the top. I turned left and headed off toward Cromer, turning right onto the minor Felbrigg road to avoid Cromer. The snow was falling again and was quite thick down this lane. It was difficult to see the road boundary and there was some traffic coming the other way to avoid. Doing a maximum of 20 mph I eventually arrived on the main A140 to Norwich, to find it was snowed up much the same. So it was a slow old drive to Norwich where it finally stopped snowing and the roads were relatively OK. Once I got through Norwich onto the A11 it was steady single lane going at about 40 mph. Then as I got to Thetford it became a lot clearer and I could do the last few miles at normal pace. I was pretty tired as I arrived home at nearly 3 am – normally this journey would take an hour and half it had taken about 2 and half hours on this night. Nigel and Alex had had an equally difficult journey home concluding in Nige slewing his car across the road whilst trying to park the car on the drive - he had to dig it out and apart from being blue with cold the air was a bit blue with expletives!

Hellesdon Wherry Scheme Xmas Party

Up feeling a bit tired, but after a slap up breakfast I was ready for the run over to Hellesdon at 10am. Arrived just after 11am and met up with Tina who briefed me to expect up to 150 in the big room. Actually the big room was smaller than I remembered – why is that? As I came out to back the car to the door, up rolls Mick so I guided him in first. As we started to get the gear in, Nigel arrived so we were triumvirate to go. Got the gear in and set up fairly quickly. We said hello to Dorothy and Nige took the opportunity to ask Tina if she would be wearing her Santa boots. 'Maybe' she said! Tina had a very good looking bunch of enthusiastic helpers and they had the room set up for lunch about the same time as we sound checked very briefly and quietly. Then she emerged in a very fetching Santa outfit complete with the long boots – getting a round of applause from Nigel.

I then made a huge mistake in asking Tina if we could be released to go to the pub next door (for beer and chips); 'cos when we got back we found we had missed being invited to Xmas dinner in the foyer with Tina and her beautiful helpers! As they were finishing their pudding and coffee, we opened up with our first set at about 2:30pm and played about an hour of lowish volume, easy listening, bantery material. I slipped in “Around The World” and “Rockin Around the Xmas Tree” and Nige did a good “Phoenix” (he got special thanks for thsi from a gent in the crowd who enjoyed the jazzy feel) and we continued the running joke about Mick being in the finest Everly's tribute seen in East Anglia this year. In the break a lady came up and reminded me that she helped me pull down my trouser leg at the do earlier in the year! We went on to do another couple of sets featuring Mick doing an excellent Jim Reeves “He'll Have to Go into Anna Marie” and “White Xmas” accompanied by Nige and I doing some nice Foot Tappery busking and harmonising. Nige did a pleasant little country set which was much appreciated. The Searchers went well and actually got a lot up to dance. I slipped in the other couple of Everlys and we did enough of the party dance stuff to get the crowd well on side singing and dancing along. About 5:30pm our audience started to dwindle as the buses arrived to take them home. We started our close down a bit later with “Never Walk Alone, which Mick sang well considering he stretched his voice on it the previous night. Nige has identified a high phrase in this song which Mick needs some support on and will try to join in and double track in future. We were pretty pleased with the audience reaction; Nige and I had been a little concerned that, without Dave's joviality and character we might struggle; but all the feedback we got was very positive. We finished about 6pm playing out the final stragglers to “Saw Her Standing There”. Pack and load up went steadily and I took my opportunity to take my leave of Tina, stealing a peck on her cheek as I encouraged her to book us back for the next event. “Budgets Permitting” she said!

Hemsby Seacroft - Showcase

Still cold. I set off about 2:30pm and arrived at Hemsby just after 4pm to find Mick loading gear into his van. Mick had been on with his mate doing a 'For Everly' set in the afternoon and had set his whole PA up, but he was breaking down the mixer which we wouldn't be using. I got my gear in and met up with Nigel to discuss wiring up the Bose to Mick's PA. Each stack consists of self-powered Yamaha Bass Bins, 1 x RCF12” + horn and 1 x RCF 10” + horn. It is a big room and we decided to stick to 'Plan A' with each Bose feeding each RCF to give stereo separation. After trying out returning the reverb to the T1, I decided it was prudent and good enough to rely on the Bose for reverb and send just a dry master out mix to the RCF. Nige and I set the T1 master outs to post-master source so we could reduce the whole volume as necessary from the T1's. Lee the entertainment manager introduced himself and asked us to set up on the smaller stage at the front. This allowed us to put the Bose in a commanding high position on the main stage. Just as we finished setting up Joe Brown's Bruvvers arrived to set up their gear. They set up on the main stage but would be bringing some of their gear forward as we cleared the stage after our set. When we were ready for a sound check Nigel went out front with my long lead as we ran through “Sky High”. He said it was a very good, hi fi sound but we would need to reduce volume a bit. Lee also said it was “too loud” in passing! Nige and Mick set about adjusting the RCF's down and that seemed to do the trick. This left us running the Bose at about 12 o'clock on the masters with the Yamaha bass bins set to about half and the RCF 10” and 12” set to about a quarter. It didn't sound that loud on stage but the Bose are surprisingly effective at filling even a big room like this. We then had a couple of hours to kill before our set at 9pm. Nige and I looked for a bar selling chips but to no avail, so we returned to join Mick and watched the Bruvvers complete their set up of mainly old gear. The guitarist was finger picking an old Strat through a Fender Blues De Ville; he was very good and got a great sound as well. Eventually the bar opened and we had a beer and Nobby's Nuts, munched our pack ups and watched the audience gather for Bingo. I think there were about 150 in as the bingo started. Amusingly they put on a 'grumpy' bingo caller – that got a few laughs. Soon it was time to get changed into our Sky High gear: black shirts, black ties, black trousers, black shoes, black socks and white waistcoats. Then it was onto the stage for a 9pm start for our 45 minute spot. Lee introduced the band and off we went into “Sky High” doing an energetic performance. Despite a bit of nerves I thought we played this well. The on-stage sound was OK if a bit distant; but we got a significant round of applause as we finished and entered the drum beat for “Don't Worry Baby”. Nige was able to get a quick “thanks” out before we started the introductory “Aahs” a bit raggedly. Again this performance was a bit nervy, but vocals were generally together and we finished beautifully on the 3 part harmony earning a warm round of applause. We took a couple of minutes bantering to introduce the band. This was also nervy and the banter timing wasn't good with me forgetting to get myself introduced. But we did get applause for each band member and set off into “Heartbeat” confidently. This time we got a few people up to dance and as we got going with “Do You Wanna Dance”; the dance floor got quite busy. Mick got the 'hallelujahs' timed right to follow Nige's intro of a number from 'Cliff Richard'; but my timing and harmony on the 'hallelujahs' was a bit untogether – but I think the idea worked and we should make the effort to make this a running band theme / joke. Although “How Sweet” seems a good song for dancing; we lost most of our dancers as we got into that. It was a slightly nervy, tad fast performance but again the final vocal harmony was spot on and it too garnered a good round of applause. We lost them with Ace's “How Long”; in retrospect it is too sophisticated and modern for this audience. Nige wisely decided to pass on the Eagles “How Long” and we got underway with the Beatles. The banter was a bit off but the wigs did raise a titter. We performed this OK and the harmony on “Nowhere Man” was very good with Mick blending well. However, those dancers who came out for the start of the medley had melted away by the end. As I introduced the “Searchers” I invited the audience to dance and (lo and behold) they came out and filled the floor nicely as we played this medley adequately. “Merry Xmas Everybody” was a bit messy and didn't keep the dancers too well. But “Sweet Caroline” did the business with dancing, sing-a-long and arms waving. Noting it was coming up to 9:42, we called “Never Walk Alone” as our last number. This went well, and filled the dance floor. By now we were getting used to the sound, Mick gave a strong vocal performance and we were rewarded with strong round of applause at the end. The grumpy bingo caller, manning the DJ desk signed us off and then he asked the crowd if they wanted some more? 'Yesss” they roared (or whimpered?) so it was guitars back on to encore with “Johnny B Goode” which I must say went pretty well and kept the dance floor busy. In retrospect, if we had our time again, I would have put in another slowey and maybe a couple of Everly's for this audience. I do think “Sky High” was the right high impact opener to make people take notice and the follow up mellow contrast with “Don't Worry Baby” worked well, but we would have been better replacing the sophisticated “How Long and How Sweet” with something older, sing-a-long and better known. We quickly changed and threw ourselves into clearing the stage. Getting the gear off the stage took only about 10 minutes. Then packing it up took another 15 minutes, not bad for a bunch of old crocks! Nige got a report from some people he knew in the audience that we were way too loud – oh dear! We carried on loading into vehicles, Micks van was jam packed at the end and he could hardly shut the door! By 10:30pm The Bruvvers were now ready to go and they played about an hour of rock'n'roll standards. Very competent, professional performance but I'd have liked to have seen some of the old Joe Brown hits. Towards the end of their set I decided to head off home for an early night - but it was still midnight before I got in. Mick had a word with Lee the manager who was very keen on his 'For Everly's' tribute duo – the finest tribute he'd seen all year! But it turned out he was less keen on 'Sky High', we think mainly because of the volume. Mick explained we had been trying out a new PA and had learned from the experience. In the end he left him to take some soundings from the audience; but we remain hopeful.

Caister Social Club

Cold day. Martin Depping. Journey over involved a 10 minute delay for an accident on the A47, otherwise it was good going and I still arrived on time to find Nigel already there. He had been over to Plug studios to pick up his Audix mic left behind on Thursday – he was lucky it was still there! PJ apologised in advance for the expected low turnout due to pub re-opening session nearby. We managed to all get set up on the small stage and waited for an audience to arrive. By 8:45 pm there was a table of 5 lads and PJ. So we opened up and enjoyed a bit of banter with the lads until they cleared off about 4 numbers into it. That left PJ and a chap he was talking to. We completed the set playing to these 2 and took a break. PJ came over and said the band sounded great and apologised again. Off we went with set 2 playing a few try outs, including “Sky High, How Long (Ace), How Long (Eagles), How Sweet It Is” with Martin on lead vocals. It all worked quite well considering we hadn't played them much before. Actually it was a good sound on stage and we all found it quite pleasant to play and try out things. Our final set was more of the same: trying out things and taking our time I think I did “Honky Tonk Women”, Martin did “Walk of Life” and Nigel did “Hippy Hippy Shake”. We finished with “Johnny B Goode” and a couple came into to dance so we extended it a bit with bass and drum solos and it was well appreciated by the 4 people in the room! But that was it – time to pack up and make our way home. Had a quiet run home getting in about 1:30am

Practice at Plug Studios

Got away a bit late but made good time over for an 11am arrival. The first thing on the agenda was to test the Bose T1 into Mick's PA rig. Nige uncovered a pre-master volume software switch in my T1 and we ran a stereo Jack to XLR to Micks rig to give a balanced signal to minimize hum. This worked very well; so experiment over we started practice. Things went generally smoother than the previous week. We switched and sorted some vocal parts, added a bit of comedy with some Hallelujahs in Sir Cliff's “Do You Wanna Dance” and finalised running order for the show case as follows:

1. SKY HIGH straight into
2. DON'T WORRY BABY

Band Intro
3. HEARTBEAT

Drum Intro & voice over + Hallelujahs
4. DO YOU WANNA DANCE
5. HOW SWEET IT IS

Bass start, then Drums then Guitar
6. HOW LONG (has this been going on)
7. HOW LONG (Eagles)

8. BEATLES MEDLEY
- Eight Days a Week
- Can't Buy Me Love
- All My Lovin
- Nowhere Man
- I Feel Fine
- She Loves You

9. SEARCHERS MEDLEY
- Sugar and Spice
- Needles and Pins
- Walk in the Room
- Don't Throw Your Love Away

Guitar Intro
10. MERRY XMAS EVERYBODY
11. SWEET CAROLINE

Final Number Vocal Starts it
12. YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE

Encore only if needed
13. JOHNNY B GOODE

We kept at it until voices were starting to croak by 4:45pm and with a quick pack up hoped to be away ahead of the traffic. Alas traffic was bad and I had to divert onto the Fakenham Road to make progress, but eventually got home about 6:30pm.

Trimingham Caravan Park

Had a good run on a cold night to meet up with Nigel and Martin (depping). Andy arrived to let us in about 7:10pm and we got set up with the conventional gear easily enough. I had removed the enhancer from the PA rack and Nige and I took our time to get the best result we could from the PA using just the Mackie EQ. It did seem punchier; but still limited by feedback mainly because we angled in the EV on Nige's side to give some foldback. Nige borrowed my long lead and went right out as we played “Brown Eyed Girl” for a sound check. He reported a good balance but quiet; even though it sounded pretty loud on stage! Andy got us a beer in and we got changed into the black 'n' black for an on time 9pm typical Foot Tapper start. Usual limited audience reaction so we worried less about continuity and put more effort into performing a good variety of set 1 material including "Rocking Around the Xmas Tree" (a bit fast) and finishing with “Words”. Set 2 was a bit more interesting as we peppered it with numbers for the Sky High show, including: “How Long Ace, How Long Eagles, How Sweet It Is and Sky High”. I elected to start on the 12 string with “Travel Lodge” which went well enough and I stayed on the 12 string through the Searchers. But as we had a few up and dancing, Nige called for “Do You Wanna Dance” which I had to play on the 12 string (solos and all) and then “Amarillo” before the dancers left exhausted and I could change guitar! Between sets I had a word with Dave the owner and it seems all the bookings are taken up for 2010 – he said he'd try and get Andy to book us for a party night though! Set 3 had some interesting pieces including, "White Xmas", "Merry Xmas Slade", “Honkey Tonk Women” and “Spencer Davis”. I elected to sing “Keep on Running” and the key suits me quite well – only trouble is I need to learn the words! Wrapped up with “Walk Alone” courtesy of Martin and packed up for the long run home getting in about 2:45 fairly tired.

Practice at Plug Studios Norwich

Met up with Nige and Mick at Plug for 11am. We set up my Bose for testing outputs to feed into Mick's PA. We did the test into the house PA and confirmed that the bass output would only be suitable for very low Bose processed frequencies. It worked best taking the T1 Master out into the power amp in section. I will have to return the reverb to input 4/5 on the T1 so we can provide a full vocal mix to Mick's PA. Nigel and I had talked about taking each Bose output separately to each side of Micks PA. But, given the description of the hall at Seacroft, I think it would be best if we can mix it to mono first. I'm not sure how we can do that without using Mick's mixer though?

Getting on with some practice we started to work through the 'showcase' set. In general we had some trouble with high singing. We need to bear in mind that as we begin to work together more often on these numbers the voices will flex better – so it is not a good idea to bring down the keys just yet!

Sky High: We added Nige and me on “aaahs” in the Chorus. Mick had trouble hitting the F on “Sky High---” so we agreed he would aim for a low A whilst Nige went for a low C and I went for the High A. Good enough to get by but I would rather fix it so Mick and Nige sings the C and high F under my high A . We adjusted the ending to repeat the Link Intro and end on a final stab on Am. Otherwise this went very well – tight and dynamic.

After the Sky High stab, the idea is for Mick and Nige to immediately pick up the drum and bass G intro for “Don't Worry Baby” I would suggest that this is a short 2 bars unless we are announcing over it. We sorted out harmonies based on top of Nigel's Mike Love type bass vocals which are characteristic of this song. Mick will need to listen to the Beach Boys phrasing on the lead line, hard to do and drum but worth the effort. We agreed to end it by repeating the Intro and then Rit Rallying to an accapella end doing a final “don't worry baby--”

Do You Wanna Dance: Mick sets up the Cliff type catchy snare intro and beat. Tempo needs to be not too fast to encourage dancing! We agreed Mick Lo Nige Lead Mog Hi on the harmonies. Ending with the final Chorus and “Oh Ba-by” Stop “Do you wanna dance” Drum Roll to end on G

Heartbeat: Mick to Count in (slightly faster than Buddy Holly heading to Nick Berry tempo) Mog to do first verse solo. On the Middle 8 Mick Lo and Nige Hi “aahs” “Wap Wap Wap” then all sing the final “Heart Beat why do you miss when my baby kisses me” Mick Lo start on D. Verse 2 Mick Lo Nige Hi on “Heart Beat” 's

How Sweet It Is: Mick Lead, Mog Close Above, Nige Hi Above (Carly Simon Lines) First Chord is C Maj 7. Mog to sort out Solo and Mick to Accent Final “I wanna stop” in half verse following. Ending on Final Chorus Rit Rally on Last “How sweet it is to be loved by you--”

How Long (Ace) went well. Mick Lead, Nige close above, Mog Hi Mog to sort out 16 bars of solo over Bm

How Long (Eagles) Nige and Mog to play E F# G G# A under “rock yourself to sleep” in Chorus Otherwise OK but with some room for improvement as we get familiar with key and playing together.

Beatles Medley: More work on Vocals and some harmonies to check. Mick to sing lead line on last “Yeh Yeh Yeh Ye—h” on She Loves You Nige will do the hi line and Mog will pick up the 6th note on the last Yeah.

I plan to write all these changes up in my Mogerised arrangements. At 4:45 we cleared the room in about 15 minutes and loaded up for the off in rush hour. I followed Nige to the A 47 and dropped down to the A 11 from there. A bit knackered after a hard days work.