Greetings, my little peccadillos!
Now, that was enough rawk’n’roll fun to last anybody a fortnight… which is just as well, since we’re not playing for a couple of weeks, since I’m running away to Exotic Foreign Parts.
Still, we’ll have plenty of fun to look back on – particularly last Wednesday’s outing to Priddy, hidden way down deep in the Mendips.
So – a midweek gig, in the middle of nowhere – we weren’t expecting a particularly exciting night, to be honest.
Borag Thungg, Earthlets!
…and a mighty fine weekend of fun that was! Saturday saw us hoofing over to beautiful sunny Tintern, to play a wedding bash right outside the picturesque Abbey (it’ll be lovely when it’s finished).
Now, sometimes wedding gigs aren’t too much fun from our point of view; they are often rather subdued affairs where our main job is really to play quietly in the corner and not upset anybody.
Not so this one – it was a delightfully bonkers affair, with the field set up like a fete / funfair, with sack races, welly throwing competitions, a free sweeties stall, a free cake stall, and… Rosa, come back here! Too late, she has skipped merrily off, and soon comes back laden with several large bags of sweeties. Having set up, we sit happily in the sunshine sipping beer, eating barbecue, and watch the proceedings.
Good morning campers!
My, that was an interesting Saturday night. We rolled up at the Locomotive in Swindon, to find a mob in fancy dress, largely – but by no means entirely – Scottish themed, the reason for this never quite becoming clear over the course of the evening. What was clear was that they weren’t a shy, retiring bunch. I have to say that I have never in my life seen so many giant inflatable willies in one place. In retrospect, something I’m probably quite glad about.
Poor Ben didn’t have the best of nights; he’s brought along his new shiny wireless system – but alas, because it has an oddball stereo jack on it, his complex high-tech active bass refuses to work with it – basically the act of plugging the wireless in switches the bass off.
Top o’ the mornin’ to ye, begorrah, and similar nonsense.
As I’m a bit pushed for time today, I’ll keep this short – just the edited highlights.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…
Best moment from Saturday night’s traditionally lively gig at the Queen Vic in Stroud; Rosa’s rather bizarre request to the audience between songs, somewhere in the second set…
“Right everybody, what I want you to do now is to look at the person on your left… and lick their face!!”.
This was immediately followed by another announcement,
Hey gang
Another fun night out in Keynsham; up at the Trout, where there was the usual messy beer-spilling mayhem from the locals. My favourite moment of the evening occurred when Rosa decides she needs the whole pub to join with a dance move – and asks for suggestions from the audience. When none are forthcoming, as usual she picks on someone.
“You there, the lady at the back – what’s your name?”
“Er…it’s Theresa…”
“Right, Theresa, show everybody your favourite dance move”.
Well hello there; do come in, we’ve been expecting you…
Right then, what just happened this weekend? Anybody remember?
This is the problem with having too nice a time at the weekend, and thinking “Oh, bugger it, I’ll write the blog up on Monday” – you can’t remember anything that happened before yesterday.
I could try making something up, but that doesn’t usually end well. Tell you what, if you lot write in and tell me what you’d like me to make up for next week, I’ll do that. Actually – here’s a better idea – you lot write in and tell me what style you’d like next week’s episode to be written in – since we’ve already covered film noire and swords-and-sorcery fantasy, you could choose (for example) a Western, a sci-fi theme, soy thriller, or anything else that take your fancy. Personally, I’d like something featuring lime jelly and lots of cheerleaders, but it’s your call.
Aloha!
Well, guess what, another weekend, another couple of gigs…
After last weekend’s little surprise, we were hoping that nobody was going to take their top off during a gig.
Well, they didn’t…
Friday at the Tern in Yate was worthy of mention though, it was enlivened by a bunch who were in celebrating somebody’s birthday, and they all managed to get themselves into a rather advanced state of disrepair. Thus it was that we got some fairly lively audience interaction going on; in particular, one rather hirsute young gentleman, who was so keen to join in that when Rosa introduced an Amy Winehouse number by asking if there was anybody named Amy in the room, he raised his hand enthusiastically and shouted “Me! Me!”… Similarly, when Rosa commented on the warm weather, asking if anybody had had to resort to sunblock yet, he also piped up, “Yes, I did! I had to, I’m as ginger as f*&k!”.
Yo homeys! [Editor’s note: I think he means “Hello”]
Well, more mad fun in the world of rawk’n’roll. Friday night, and the King William IV in Bath turns out to be a small pub, with only-just-enough-room to set up in, provided that Ben and I don’t mind both each playing hidden behind a PA speaker, and provided that they’re not actually using the pool table which is right next to where I have to go.
They are (inevitably) using the pool table all night, so I find myself trying to play solos whilst ducking under the back of a pool cue, simultaneously making sure the bumblewit poolies aren’t treading all over my pedals every time they try to take a shot.
Goooooood morning!
Another weekend, another fantastic time…. Friday night, and since it’s my beautiful Dem’s birthday, we have persuaded her to come along with us to the Cat & Wheel, with daughter Lil as an escort. (That’s not in the sense of “working as an escort”, you understand, just “escorting Dem”. I mean, the extra cash always comes in handy, but everybody needs a night off now and then…)
Anyhoo, my lovely two were just into their second pint, and the kit was just about set up, when our ol’ pals John & Adam rolled in, and in true chivalrous fashion took charge of supervising the girls’ alcohol intake for the evening – with extremely successful results.
Yo homeys!
Well, that was fun; as it happened, we ended up playing 2 gigs this weekend, since we got a call to cover a cancellation on Friday at the Red Lion in Paulton, way down in deepest darkest Zummerzet. We were set up at one end of the pub, while the bar and all the punters were down half a flight of stairs; having played this kind of set up before, we knew that it was going to be hard work dragging the punters up the stairs to join us. As it turned out, it took us until nearly half way through the first set before Rosa succeeded in bullying them to come up and start enjoying themselves.
