Guess Who Gets Roped In...

Wednesday 30 January 2002. Later that night we boarded the coach again to head to a Tyrolean Evening in a nearby large hostelry. The singing on the way there was making Jock howl in the driving seat...!

Yes, it's your actual Austrian hands, knees and bumps-a-daisy traditional evening with music, folk dancing, bell ringing and hammering in the silver mine!

Here all the little handbells are arranged on the table for the tune known as the Glockenplattler. It's usually the ladies of the troupe who play the bells interspersed with much hand slapping and knee slapping.

And these nights never pass without a certain amount of audience participation... Now admit it, yes, come on, you did expect this didn't you? I did - if there's any danger of being involved in a show it is always me... "Mug" written all over me!

There's only one way to deal with this and that is to enter the spirit of the thing with gusto and do your best to out-do the rest of the troupe!

In particular when it came to the yodelling yell, I filled my lungs and made sure my yell went on for longer than anybody else's - even the guy holding the mic! Then pulled off a few elaborate bows to get the audience well and truly on my side! I got a huge roar from the audience and as I made my way back to the table, one of the Americans on the table in front of ours stood to shake my hand! To quote a certain Mr Punch: "That's the way to do it!"

And there we go, the end of the holiday. It just remained for one of the lads in the folk troupe to get very worried as he climbed up onto our table to dance, because all the women were trying to squint up the legs of his rather short lederhosen... Tomorrow and the day after will be spent travelling north back to and across the Channel and then back to good old Blackpool and home.

Return to Austria Winter Holiday 2002 Index

A Touch of the Festival Atmosphere at Larbreck Hall

After several years of playing inside the Great Barn at Larbreck Hall Caravan Park, our annual visit coincided with some good weather this year so we played on the green behind the farmhouse and car park.

Numbers weren't quite as high as at Glastonbury, but they spread themselves around a bit and there was certainly a great atmosphere and an enthusiastic response from the audience to every number. The Eagles' Lyin' Eyes got a first play last night too and (even if I do say so myself) sounded a bit spivish rare! We normally find that any song that sounds right from the very first playing (and at the start of the evening David hadn't even heard the backing arrangement!) then it will become a firm favourite for future gigs!

So we swapped the usual backdrop of spare caravans for a backdrop of cars and minibuses, but we had a great night and started off with the sun in our eyes, ending in the glare of our mobile spotlights as the temperature plummeted and only stopped when it got cold enough for the condensation to form on every surface and we decided there were too many electrics for that to be ignored!

RIP my mic stand too - the thread stripped and I had to use it as a straight-up instead of being able to use the boom arm. An interesting experience leaning over the guitar to sing and impossible to play the keyboards and lean far enough over to sing into the mic... A visit to the music store called for before our next gig!

A quick thanks to all the people who have bought the The Sunnyside of Creeping Bentgrass album and told us it's our best yet! We must start on the next one - though first we are planning to release a folk album as we have continually had to turn down requests for one. This will be a compilation of all the folk style songs from previous albums plus a number of new tracks. No telling when we'll have The Folk Side of Creeping Bentgrass ready at this stage but we are hoping to have it out by the end of 2010.