Creeping Bentgrass, Golden Wedding Party in Garstang

Last night found us driving out to Garstang to play for a Golden Wedding party for two lovely people who have booked the band in the past, several years ago and remembered us from then.

The format of the party roughly followed the format of the wedding, 50 years ago, with speeches by the Best Man and Groom. There was an Irish Raffle. We hadn't heard of this before but basically prizes chosen had to remain on your table in front of you and more tickets were drawn than there were prizes. Once the stock of prizes ran out, winners were allowed to pinch a prize from someone else, which made for a lot of fun and a much-travelled bottle of champagne! The tin of beans didn't move about anywhere near as much...!

Barry and Marlene, it was a pleasure to play for you again, I just hope we have that sort of energy when another ten years goes by to Miss Franny and my own 50th Anniversary! Heck... I wish I had that much now!

And just to bring past gigs up to date, here's a couple I missed over the Christmas and New Year period...

The 29th December saw us out at Darwen, playing at the house party of some long-standing friends. Very informal and lots of fun. We were pipped at the post this year and missed out on a hat-trick of winning Brian's quiz...

New Year's Eve saw us playing at the Thurlby Club in Preston, where we had played earlier in the year. A game of Bingo was held to raise funds for necessary repairs to the roof. David won and donated the prize back with a wish that they did the bit over the stage first...! A really good night with a load of laughs!

Creeping Bentgrass Harvest Song Fest

Last night David and I played at a Harvest Festival in Darwen, Lancashire. We were in a church hall which filled up nicely quite early on before we started and we played a taster of all the different styles of music we cover as we went through the night.

Two young boys were sitting right at the front and from the word Go they were playing imaginary guitars along to the music and looking as though they were having the most fabulous time. I dug out a couple of plectrums (guitar picks) from my supply and gave them one each and their smiles went skyward! As we took a break whilst food was being served they came over to talk to us - a 6 and an 8-year-old, bursting with things to tell us about all sorts of things, school, how they had a guitar at home. One of their teachers was called Miss Chadwick... They were lovely.

We spoke to their parents who were equally friendly and lovely and it turned out that they were a family of refugees who had been settled locally. They had been brought to the event by one of their local councillors as a way of introducing them into the community and he was almost overcome with the way we welcomed them. We had actually treated them as we would anyone else. That's all you have to do...

Creeping Bentgrass Party Time

Last night Creeping Bentgrass headed out to Darwen to play at a 60th birthday party. It was quite cold in the room to begin with and my strings were not eager to stay in tune until we had played for an hour or so and enough people had come in to warm the place up a bit!

We had (rather rashly perhaps) agreed to sing Let It Go from the Disney film Frozen for a couple of little girls who were going to be there. This was the first time I've ever sung the line "...and it looks like I'm the Queen"... A voice killer, but it went down an absolute storm (sorry!) and earned us a standing ovation after the entire room erupted with singing! A whole new career beckons...

Back on more familiar ground, every gig features a couple or more songs where I ditch the guitar in favour of playing the keyboard live. Not sure when Miss Franny took this photo but it could be on Peaceful Easy Feeling or It's Now Or Never or the crowd pleaser, Penny Arcade.

Happy Birthday Chris!

House Party At Christmas

Once again over the Christmas period Creeping Bentgrass headed over to Darwen to play at a large house party.

With all the weather that had been going around we were pleasantly relieved to get there without having to wade the car through any floods. What an awful time many people have had at a time of year that should be enjoyable.

Ours at least was an enjoyable night and plenty of the party-goers told us how much they looked forward to it every year. In fact I'm sure there were more people there this year! And we heard from the organiser of the Harvest Festival we did earlier in the year that audience members from that event had been asking for our return too!

A huge than you to our hosts Brian and Christine!

Darwen Gig

Last Saturday saw Creeping Bentgrass out at a church hall in Darwen, where we played for a Harvest celebration.

One of those nights where the audience could be seen - and heard - enjoying themselves! People were singing along, clapping, dancing and nodding their heads in time with the music and they were very generous with their applause. A raffle and tombola helped the night along and there was a rather excellent supper served as well.

We got some good rapport going with the audience as I called out the raffle numbers and the time went all too quickly. I always love it when the organiser of an event says "Oh, everyone stayed a lot longer than I expected them to...!"

Creeping Bentgrass in Darwen

On Friday 27 December we were out in wildest Darwen. It was the weather that was wild, not the inhabitants, I hasten to add. We were blown about on the road a bit on our way there, but we arrived safely and played for a private house party for our hosts Christine and Brian.

We have played here several times before - we usually play both a garden party in summer and a Christmas house party for Christine and Brian and have come to know many of their regular guests and neighbours. A nice relaxed gig for us too. It's a good place to try out new songs and this time The Tremeloes' Suddenly You Love Me got an airing and went down extremely well with its sing-a-long chorus!

Christmas Party

Our last gig of the year was a house party where the night started with an apology from the hosts. This is where we did the summer garden party when the dreaded midges struck! It wasn't the fault of the hosts of course. It was that over-excited singer I hang about with, who refused to listen when I said I was being bitten and just said "One more!", meaning half a dozen more...

This time there were no midges. We were indoors. And Miss Franny was keeping a close eye to make sure I got no little nibbles anyway... spoil-sport!

We played to a full house, literally! Thanks once again Christine and Brian! We got some great comments and there were lots of people singing and tapping feet!

Went to a Garden Party

Yesterday saw Creeping Bentgrass out at Darwen, playing at a friend's garden party. I took the blue Mexican Stratocaster along for a change - nice to play it again.

Huge garden on several levels and a lot of people there - not that I am surprised by this in any way because Chris and Brian are excellent hosts and the food is always scrummy.

Not that Mr Lancaster gave me much chance to get my gnashers around much of it... "Keep playing while they eat, we'll stop in a bit..."

My fingers are an inch shorter... Great party Chris and Brian, thanks for inviting us!

Squashed Into the Kiosk!

New venue for the band again last night. We played last Saturday at Turton Tower for the start of a walking festival and it was the end of the walking festival last night. The walkers were a little tired after tramping about for a full week I should imagine...

We were at the Olde England Kiosk in Darwen and weren't exactly sure what to expect from the name - visions of trying to play in a telephone box inevitably sprang to mind!

But we needn't have worried as the "kiosk" is an old lodge with a hall that will take 80 or so people quite happily.

I didn't fare too well in the photograph stakes last night for some reason. Everyone seemed to take the opportunity of setting up to take photos of the top of my head... This was the best of those from my point of view and some will never see the light of day... or the dark of night either for that matter...!

And I'm not sure why I'm looking so despondant here either. Sigh... It was an excellent night despite an extremely wet start and we had a brilliant time, with a hotpot and mushy peas supper and some enthusiastic dancers.

We played Clapton's Wonderful Tonight for the first time in public and it sounded very nice and certainly brought dancers together instead of the modern minimum 12-inch gap we see so often!

I'm not really sure what Miss Franny thought was so appealing here as to warrant a photograph but she seems to think it "turned out rather well"...

Playing at Turton Tower

Creeping Bentgrass were booked to appear at Turton Tower yesterday afternoon for the launch of a Walking Festival. We will be at the Olde England Kiosk on Friday night in Sunnyhurst Wood to celebrate the end of the festival too. Though they are not that far apart come to think of it, so if it takes anyone 5 days to walk from Turton Tower to Sunnyhurst Wood then they aren't trying! Far enough that I'd not try it though! Somehow I don't think that walking from one to the other is the aim of the Walking Festival to be honest!

We arrived a little early in order to give ourselves time to find the venue, which I'd not visited before.

Turton Tower is one of Lancashire's old halls. The house was built during the Tudor and Stuart period in the 1600s, though by making additions to a Pele tower which had been built in 1420. It was bequeathed to the local council in the 1920s and has been open to the public since 1974. More information can be found at the website of the Friends of Turton Tower.

We were sited against the wall of the tower and the kitchens to the tea room (from which came a wonderful range of smells throughout the afternoon and also a peal of delicious laughter at one point - not sure what was going on, but I did ask to join in, which got a laugh from the audience!

There was a wonderful view before us. Picnic benches were dotted around the grassed area where we were playing and we had a number of people listening to us throughout the afternoon, whilst over the hedges and fence opposite, woodland stretched in front of us an people walking along paths in the middle distance waved to us as they walked with family and dogs. The Mayor, who was present for the launch of the festival came to meet us and helped make it more of an occasion and the staff at the house were fantastic.

A sudden shower made us stop for a moment to withdraw under the cover of our gazebo, but we were soon set up and playing again and the audience were very brave, staying put. Sure enough it soon passed over and apart from having to shuffle a bit more backwards as the gazebo roof started to drip a bit we were fine. The sides of the gazebo were utilised to provide matching speaker covers!

It was a wonderfully relaxed afternoon. We were on form and we had a very appreciative audience - for this type of open air gig such enthusiastic applause is rare and was very much appreciated by us. This year has been busy for us. We normally play around a dozen gigs a year but yesteday was already the 13th public performance of 2010 and there's enough in the diary to take us to twice our normal quota before the year's end.

The first gig using the new car too - all the gear went in the back without too much trouble and David and Jeannie were able to sit on the back seats without having to share footspace with speaker stands!

Darwen Charity Gig

Yesterday saw us out in Darwen, playing for a charity event in aid of cancer research at the home of our special friends, Christine and Brian.

It's a large garden and we had a gazebo in one corner just in case but the rain was good to us and stayed away whilst we played throughout the afternoon and into the evening.

A slight technical mishap - we'd taken our smaller PA system and then blew one of the speakers... A touch of repair work needed I think! Anyway the remaining speaker was made of hardier stuff and performed well for the rest of the gig!

And I gather whilst we were out and working, we had a track played on London's Radio Northwick Park - thank you to DJ Pierre Petrou and our friends at http://www.billyfury.com!

The track at the Billy Fury site this month is one of my solo efforts - Tracks of My Tears.