Hola amigos!
Well, we have a mighty fine weekend of giggage to report.
Thursday brought a lovely warm sunny evening, and as we rolled up to the Oak in Chipping Sodbury (half an hour late in my case, thanks to South Glos council’s decision to shut THREE seperate roads without any notice or diversion signs – and to be fair, I also managed to get three miles from home before remembering that my guitars were still back there…), it was apparent that the majority of the good folks of Chipping Sodbury had decided to spend the evening at home playing with barbeques.
Still, those that were in were in good spirits, and happily indulged us while we played through a series of tunes that we haven’t done in a long, long time, on the grounds that if we made terrible fools of ourselves, there wouldn’t be too many witnesses to dispose of.
In the event, our experiments went off rather well, so – at least for now – those in the room can live.
Towards the end of the night, a party of about a dozen funsters rolled in, had a riotous time, and booked us to play a party for them in a few months, a much nicer way of booking gigs than messing around messaging venues on the interweb.
Saturday afternoon, and we have an appointment with Fishponds Party In The Park, which has grown over the years to an excellent bash, with loads to do and two stages of entertainment. As Abs was tied up, daughter Lily was conscripted to cover vocal duties, and as usual, she was magnificent. After our lunchtime set, we all had a mooch about, but it was too hot for prolonged mooching, and by 4pm we were all on our way home in search of cool things.
A spot of grub, a reloading of the van, and it was back on the road up to the Queen Vic in Stroud, where it was lovely to catch up with a few old mates. The fierce weather again had deterred quite a few, but by the end of the night, we managed to have the dance floor packed again with sweaty gyrating punters. I love a sweaty gyrating punter, me.
As we packed up, a chap came up and offered to buy us all a drink; we had to graciously decline, as we were all driving and had used up our quota. He asked how much we were getting paid for the evening, and when I told him, said “Outrageous” and stomped off.
Five minutes later, he returned and pressed £50 into Abby’s hand. Apparently, he used to sing in rock bands (I must admit, he did rather look the type), and we’d treated him to a fond nostalgic moment.
I’ve concluded that it’s nice to be appreciated by sweaty gyrating punters, but even nicer to be appreciated by ones with spare money.
Future gig attendees, please take note.
Your next chance to offer us free money, just for being lovely and talented, comes up on Saturday: –
Saturday 28th June – The Regent, Weston Super Mare
Stuart swears we’ve played here before. I’m convinced we haven’t. That is all. [Editors note] We haven’t played here before, I was thinking of “The Imperial” as it turns out.
Meanwhile – for no particular reason, here’s a snap of Stuart channelling his inner Dick Dastardly…
Square on
A