Halberd

20-06-2022 – What Halberd

Ahoy there!

Firstly, apologies to anyone who was hoping to see us on Friday at the Cat & Wheel, our Ben was taken unexpectedly poorly that morning and so sadly we had to cancel – which is a great shame, as we were particularly looking forward to that one.

And particular apologies to anyone who didn’t hear the news in time and actually turned up…. As you now know, we weren’t there….

By mid-Saturday, Ben was feeling sufficiently better to have a crack at the Old Mill in Portishead, so we duly fetched up there, and miraculously managed to load everything in between rain showers.

And a very nice place indeed it turned out to be. We managed to fit everything quite neatly by tucking Stuart in under the stairs, with nary a quarter of an inch to spare between his head and the staircase. “It’ll be all right as long as he doesn’t actually move”, we figured… and in fact, he managed to get through the whole night without any unexpected skull/staircase percussion effects.

So that was five minutes of my evening wasted, spent going around the audience before we started, explaining the high risk of him nutting the stairs, and briefing them to raise a loud cheer every time he did so…..

And, a very jolly night it turned out to be – Ben rallied magnificently and – apart from avoiding some of the sillier stage theatrics – you wouldn’t have known he was so poorly just the day before. Abby had a very bouncy time with the crowd, who were nice and lively all night, but without spilling a drop over the monitors, which is always a nice bonus.

For me, though, the highlight was provided by a friend of ours’ daughter, who we’d not met before, and turned out to be a budding singist. As her proud dad explained, “She entered a competition, and sang that really high Darkness tune, “I Believe In A Thing Called Love”, she powered right through it”.

Interesting…

A quick survey of Ben and Stuart reveals that we can probably remember it….

Would she like to come up and sing it with us later on?

Oh, yes, very much so, it seems, her eyes got real big…

So, as we near the end of the second set, we call her up, she bounds up to the mic, never having played with a band before, and, in short, does a magnificent job, with no hesitations, no missed cues, no worries.  The audience goes suitably bonkers and used up our entire stock of inflatable guitars. There’s video footage somewhere, and hopefully, it will get posted so I can see it too. Sadly, I have forgotten the lass’s name, but we’re hoping to see her again and will be more than happy to have her come up and get stuck in another time.

So – a few more tunes after that, and we’ve run out of time, so we bid a farewell to the merry punters, and set about trying to untangle all the cables so we can pack up.

Great fun night, an ace venue, and we’re hoping to be back there before too long.

Coming up in the nearer future, however…

Thursday 23rd, The Head Of Steam, Cardiff – 8pm start

Never been to this one before; it appears to be right by the castle, though, so it is just possible that to get into the spirit of things, I will dress up as a medieval knight for the occasion. And I’m pretty sure that Ben would look stunning in a wimple…

Right, I’ll leave you with that mental image – time to go and get myself measured up for a halberd*.

Square on

A *I’m not actually sure what a halberd is – type of fish, maybe…?

2 thoughts on “20-06-2022 – What Halberd”

  1. hi alan,
    im not receiving any blog emails from angel up front is your email list still working , please add me back onto the list , thanks

    alan from pighill (swindon)

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