Mayday Mayday! Well, Bank Holiday weekend

Well folks, I know the title of this posts suggests a cry for help this last weekend and it certainly felt like that at times, however, we've just had a rather different kind of Bank Holiday weekend in Rain-land.

Saturday's gig at The Cumberland Arms had to be postponed, due to Graeme spending the day in bed, feeling all "fluey". He was sent to bed with painkillers and orange juice and ordered to stay put, Sam from The Cumberland is a top bloke and has postponed the gig till August, we'll post the date at a later point..

Sunday and Graeme had made a recovery of sorts, and despite still feeling offside, we went to our two gigs of the day! (Which later became three.. of a fashion)

The first gig was at Leek Arts Festival, in the Market place.. despite the sunshine, it was in fact really rather chilly, due to a nice Easterly wind blowing down the High Street... We suffered the chilly breeze, wrapped up in coats and gloves and gave it our all, thankfully a crowd gathered and we were applauded every step of the way, which is lovely, feeling the warmth and appreciation from the crowd.

Second gig of the day (after a brief lunch) was at Burslem Arts Festival, we had been told we'd be playing the "Acoustic Stage" outside The Swan, however, upon arriving, poor Lee (one of the orgnisers) was running down the street, having frantically tried to get hold of us all morning to tell us that we were in fact playing on the mainstage!! How about that then??

The mainstage at Burslem was rather akin to a bouncy castle... well, the outside of it was.. the temptation to run and bounce off the walls was tempting, but we simply didn't have the time. What was refreshing was playing through a very large PA!! A very lively monster of a machine that picked up every nuance, but sounded beautiful.. Decent equipment is always worth it, in my mind, rather than just scrimping by.. The stage area felt huge and I felt that we were a little lost on it really, but it was a rather enjoyable experience, seeing how more popular musicians live, as it were. (A short aside, we can now say that we have played on the same billing as Simon Townshend, as he played the Festival on the Monday, but we don't really go in for all that kudos collecting.) Again we were well received, particularly by our good friends Pete and Paul, who had come along to lend support with raucous applause.

Sunday evening we decided to pop along to the ever popular Acoustic night in the Swan in Burslem, which is run by the multi talented Arthur Righteous, a warm and welcoming man, in an equally warm and welcoming pub. It was a bit of a surprise, to be honest, as we kind of expected a somewhat smaller audience, but the place was packed!! Which was lovely.. A great number of musicians, and three showcases..Graham Dawson, Pickering White and the utterly brilliant Sons of Clogger... a fantastic night, everyone on top form, with a few songs from us for good measure.. Just makes me remember how lucky we are to have such a plethora of creativity in this great City of ours.