The Mad Month of March

Hi folks.. Its been a while since I blogged.. Just  getting busier and busier, as is the wont of any musician during the warmer months. Gigs getting booked, Festivals being arranged and well.. all manner of exciting stuff underway. Our CD was released at the end of February and have been finding their way off to new homes... Really must see how many we have left.. Oh, another time...

Onto the gigs..

Saturday 1st March
Saw a welcome return to The Greyhound in Penkhull, having recently changed ownership and brought about some welcome changes with the new management, it is, once more a delightful venue to play. We were rather pleased to see a load of our friends at this one, our first 'local' gig for a while. We barraged the audience with a load of new covers, which all went down well.. and as seems to be the habit in The Greyhound the dancers enjoyed it too.. We put it down to Stoke having won that day, but it was nice to be appreciated by a lovely crowd and to see so many friends there. We started a game of 'guess the song/artist'.. which went down well with everyone.. and it prevented getting mobbed on stage and asked the usual 'who's this by?' questions. One table got 4 points and were well chuffed with themselves.. and quite rightly so!

Saturday 15th March
An early doors gig at The Lymestone Brewer 20/20 Beer Festival was simply wonderful.. We'd sneaked in early the night before to watch Sons of Clogger perform their delightful blend of roguery and charm, which they did with their usual aplomb, so knew what we were letting ourselves in for.. Including making some new friends and meeting up with some old ones who promised to come along.. Saturday arrived and as it was an 'early doors' gig, we set up early.. the Beer Festival was already in full swing, ale was being quaffed and we got to performing. Despite the brilliance of the venue, with its wonderful high ceiling.. it was freezing!! Now, something I didn't realise is that fine ales need to be in a cold climate.. I thought the warmer the better, but that would just explain my lack of knowledge of brewing.. Apart from the cold, it was a stunning event to play at, everyone there was happy, as the early evening descended and the sun set, the crowds began to arrive, no doubt fed up with shopping and needing a night out. We certainly received a warm response from everyone, and enjoyed every second of the acoustics of the room! We were followed by Elvis Fontenot and the Sugarbees.. who are a 'must see' band.. playing a blend of Cajun and Zydeco beats to get everyone dancing.. had I not damaged my knee a few days prior.. I'd have got up and danced away too..

Friday 21st March
Took us to the Flying Lady in Crewe.. Before I start, I should tell you, I'd had a migraine for a few days before the gig, so wasn't at my best, but was prepared to soldier on.. Graeme packed the car.. I followed him out.. arrived at the gig, unpacked the gear... "Where's the mic stand?"... We were running late anyway, so poor Graeme had to drive all the way back to Stoke to retrieve said stand. I was unpopular.. Its part of my gear and I forgot it.. I glanced on my way out at the corner where it was propped up and it never registered with me. I was in trouble.. 20 mins to the start and we'd no mic stand. Ordinarily with a standard mic, it wouldn't be too bad, but with my huge whopping heavy thing.. no chance, I'd have no arms left.. so the mic stand was needed. Graeme finally arrived back and we just plugged in without sound checking first... Graeme's pedal board was playing up, people were complaining they could hear the vocals.. We finally got it sorted when we took a short break.. By which time we were both feeling less than our best, but soldiered on through the second set, determined to carry on... With apologies to the venue, and clientele, who were very good about it really. Not one of our best gigs.. But any musician will tell you, 'we all have bad gigs'... :-(

Saturday 22nd March
To make up for being late the day before, we set out extra early for our show at The Black Swan in Leek, only to be told by Pam.. 'You don't need to go on until 9.30'.. Which meant having to prop the bar up.. which is a hard job, obviously. Was lovely again to see some friendly faces turn up to see us.. the one thing about being a musician that sucks, is the majority of your friends are also musicians, and therefore, actually having a full house of people that know you is rare indeed. Usually Friday and Saturday, which are generally gig nights, tend to be when everyone's working and therefore, not available to come and see you.. However, we had two groups of musician friends in, which was nice.. Charlie (from Crawlin' From the Wreckage) had played a gig earlier on and had sneaked in later, whereas Terry and Sharon turned up early and went elsewhere, as they weren't sure what time we were on!... Saturday was a much better night than the night before, we played well, sang well, and generally had a really lovely gig, even getting thanked for including a song which was a personal favourite of one of the girls in the crowd.. who said "I've never heard anyone do that before.. it was brilliant"

So, that's the gigs up to date..
Don't forget you can still get a copy of the album through Ebay, should you wish.. and we are preparing to get everything ready for downloads too.. Just we needed to fill in some forms and send some stuff off and are in the process of getting that ready.. Seeing as so many of you have moved on from actual 'L.P's' and cassettes onto 'downloads' we figured we would have to bring ourselves into the 21st century kicking and screaming. Don't worry, I shall blog it to death once its done!