Creeping Bentgrass 2018 Gig Reports

We've had a couple of gigs so far this year. The first I'm featuring here was in Garstang at the Banqueting Suite by the canal.

It was for a Golden Wedding celebration so we were wearing our gold sequinned ties for the occasion. We have gold, silver, ruby pink, blue and black versions of these ties, which means we can usually fit in sympathetically with different party events!

At this event a slide show of the happy couple was being projected over our heads onto a screen throughout the night!

Our second gig was in Chorley and we arrived to find both a scattering of snow and a flatteringly large advertising banner.

At the end of the night someone said "is that your white van outside?"
"No I have a black car," I said. When we got out though it was our white van... I had no gloves and clearing all the snow off left me with very red painful hands! Ah well... David got to take the poster home for his collection of CBG memorabilia!

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!

Concert for Garstang Music & Arts Festival

Last Friday night saw us at the Wyrebank Banqueting Suite, Garstang, to give a concert as part of the annual Music & Arts Festival.

The last couple of years we have been rained off, whilst playing outside near the car park and this year we were invited to put on a night of entertainment in this lovely venue.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we certainly did. Nice to see a few regular faces too. This was the first gig I played with a new guitar FX pedal after the old one went a bit quiet intermittently. A chip starting to go so I was told, as the problem only started once the pedal had been in use a couple of hours and was getting warm. Hopefully I won't have to keep kicking this new one...

Party at Garstang Golf Club

Last weekend the band were out at Garstang Golf Club to play at a birthday party. It was a big affair, formal dress and a sit down buffet for guests.

There were lots of people there too. We are there at the back of the dance floor, honest!

Once we got going it didn't take long before the dance floor filled up and we stuck mainly to our tried and tested dance stuff. Though there was time and chance to throw in a version of Billy J Kramer's From a Window from the 60s and the Bellamy Brothers' disco hit, Let Your Love Flow.

The big crowd pleasers gained their usual increased roars of applause. They include Elvis's It's Now Or Never and Burning Love, The Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Loving Feeling and Take That's The Flood - which no one expects two old geezers like us to attempt full stop, never mind attempt to ramp up on the original by adding drama and a blistering guitar solo towards the end. Lifted? Yes we were! Thanks to the hosts for booking us and to the audience for their support and for spending the night dancing!

One Out Of Three Ain't Bad...

What a weekend we have just had!!! After the summer we have (not) had, I suppose we couldn't have expected anything else, particularly with England's ability to pour water from the sky on Bank Holidays anyway.

We should have played three gigs this weekend but only managed the one.

Saturday and Monday should have seen us at Garstang's Music and Arts Festival. But on Saturday morning as it came time to pack the gear into the car, the rain was just coming down like stair rods. The car in the corner of the cul-de-sac was up to its wheel trims in water as the drains refused to cope. A couple of streets away, the residents made the local paper, wading knee deep in the street. I called our contact in Garstang and we agreed to cancel for the day and keep fingers crossed for Monday.

It did no good. On Monday morning we watched the rain lashing down and the phone rang to cancel the gig.

At least our Sunday night gig went ahead. This was out at Over Wyre Football Club in Stalmine and was for a 70th birthday party. We were safely indoors. But the weather, perhaps somewhat infuriatingly, was gorgeous anyway!

This was a record event - we played 6 full hours! Oh... my fingers...!

A Fabulous Time at the Party

What a wonderful fabulous time we had last night!

We were out at Garstang Golf Club for a 70th birthday party, playing a country and western set before the guests had a meal and then playing for dancing later on.

The lady wife of the birthday boy had done a lot of preparation for the event - there were games, competitions and a lot of fun and once the meal was over the dance floor filled up and we had a ball.

It's always very nice when bar staff tell us we are the best band they've ever heard and I have to say, the bar staff last night showed some excellent taste...

Huge thank yous to all concerned!

Check out the Creeping Bentgrass YouTube channel for samples of our work!

Rain Stops Play at Garstang

Such a shame. We had played around an hour or an hour and a half and then the heavens opened at Garstang's Music and Arts Festival yesterday.

Unlike Saturday when we covered up for a bit and then played again, Monday turned into a steady non-stop downpour and we had to move the equipment to a dry place and then try to dry it all off. Definitely not the place to be using electricity out in the open!

Thanks to the people who came to see us - especially those who had come some way especially. A couple came and he introduced himself as Hughie - they had seen us on the Internet and come all the way from Manchester. Another family had come from Blackburn after seeing us at other events and some had come down from Lancaster.

It was lovely to meet and talk with you all and we were as disappointed as anyone at not being able to carry on. We hope to see you at future events. Our dates can be found in the left hand column of the band's blog.

Dodging the Weather at Garstang

We wondered how we would get on yesterday, but apart from one very short period where we had to cover up, the rain skirted round us and the sun tried its best to make an appearance!

Even the wooden kingfisher had its warm clothing on!

Anyway, although quieter than the previous Saturday there were a number of people out and about and we had a sizeable crowd during the last hour of our set.

Creeping Bentgrass will be back in Garstang on Bank Holiday Monday for the third of our three appearances at Garstang Music and Arts Festival.

A Wedding Gig

Last night Creeping Bentgrass played at a wedding at Garstang Golf Club.

We set up our gear and then managed to have a sit down for a while as the meal was finishing and the speeches and then some family entertainment was still to come.

We played for the early part of the night before resident DJ Ricky took over. Generally the early spot is before people feel ready to dance, but in our case it went up to 11:00pm so we had a few people on the dance floor before we were done. If nothing else the dreaded Amarillo can always be relied upon to get a few people on their feet!

Here David is imploring me to play the next song in "his key!" - whatever that is...

Oh yes... and I've bought those shoes!

Garstang Festival 2011

This year we have been booked for 3 days at the Garstang Arts & Music Festival.

You'll be able to see us on Saturday 20 August, Saturday 27 August and Bank Holiday Monday 29 August. For a preview of what you can expect here's a video of two old geezers playing Concrete and Clay at the 2010 festival!

Christmas and New Year Gigs

A couple of gig reports. Fran hadn't picked her camera up for the first one but yesterday David gave me a disk of photos taken by Jeannie so I can now include a report here!

23 December 2010 saw us at the Wyrebank Banqueting Suite in Garstang, battling snow and ice to get there to play for a rather unusual event.

This was a pig club - a group that had reared a pig and was celebrating this night with the fruits of their endeavour. A meal of pork sausages and mash with plenty of sausages was followed by a sale of yet more sausages and a raffle - no they had other prizes for that!!!

Generously they invited us to sit with them for the meal and whilst David and I hardly ever eat much before a gig, (belching down microphones is never good...) it was an excellent meal.

Then we played for the rest of the night before slipping and sliding back on the ice to load the car in rather cold temperatures! Oh - and we were given a big bag of sausages as a bonus! They are rather yummy...

Last night we played the New Year in at Lancaster Golf Club. As I tuned the guitar just before starting I hit the end of a string with the tip of my thumb, feeling the string go right down into my thumb.

Muttering a surprised "Good Gracious!", I had to stick a plaster on the end of my thumb to avoid getting blood all down the neck of the guitar which would have gone sticky and perhaps not looked as aesthetically pleasing as I'd have liked.

Unfortunately the only plaster they could find was designed to cover the whole of the upper torso... Still, after a couple of songs I was able to take it off and apart from a mild soreness the thumb performed it's usual task of keeping the neck of the guitar pressed against my fingers with no problem!

And what a night! The dance floor filled as soon as we started to play and as we counted down to midnight there were balloons, confetti, cheers, hugs and kisses all round. No sausages though...

Tithebarn Mayoral Evening

What a brilliant night we had last night! It was one of those nights where we could do no wrong!

Garstang's Tithebarn was full to the rafters (I know because I could see them!) and they were well up for a night of music and laughter.

I think David and I could have spent the night doing a comedy stand-up, but we got them singing along to our selection of country, folk and irish, fifties and sixties through to more modern songs and then after a hotpot supper, the dance floor filled!

Well alright - there wasn't a dance floor as such, but the space in front of the toilets became full of people swaying, stepping, gyrating and it wasn't because the toilets were engaged at the time!

Garstang's mayor, Gillian Lamb was pleased with the night and as the evening coincided with the official Lancashire Day we had a loyal toast to the Queen, the Duke of Lancashire.

To top the night off, as we were loading the car under a brilliantly dark sky, filled with stars, Jeannie and I saw a shooting star streak momentarily across the central sky. Well it could have been a lost spanner from the space station, but it made us both gasp and brought forth instant queries from the other two as to what we were doing...

Another Day, Another Gig in Garstang!

It's been our final appearance at the Garstang Arts & Music Festival for this year today.

Today was rain free I'm glad to say. The keyboard display was exhibiting some rather disturbing symptoms after Saturday's rain and I'm going to have to get it looked at.

The stored backing tracks that I've played onto the keyboard and stored on USB are not displaying properly. For instance That'll Be The Day was displaying as 'll'll'll'll'll'll Be The Day...

Now at least that is recogniseable, but the displayed name for the specially created style for Kites, which I play live on the keyboard was totally obliterated by meaningless symbols.

Despite that the sound was ok and we had a fabulous day playing non-stop from 11:30am through until 4:00pm. The circular garden before us had all seats taken throughout and the garden on the opposite side of the road remained full and there were lots of people standing to the side and even parking up in the car park with windows down to listen, whoop and wave at us! It's very gratifying when people come up to say they have travelled quite a few miles just because we were appearing! Hope to see you again next year!

From One Garstang Gig to Another

It was a busy old day yesterday! From performing for several hours at the Arts & Music Festival we took a couple of hours break and then went to a venue in the town to perform at a private birthday party.

This was at the superb Wyrebank Banqueting Suite - what a great venue!

And what a great audience too! We almost ran out of business cards, thanks to all of you for the interest and support! If we could take an audience on tour it would be you!

So a fairly full weekend. My finger ends were smarting after 7 hours of guitar playing yesterday, we are back at the festival tomorrow and we had to turn down a booking for tonight as after a week's holiday last week I didn't think I'd have enough corn on my finger tips to play 4 gigs in 3 days! I know... what a wimp!

A big thank you to friends Sandra and Gordon who came to see us in Garstang at the festival and who, when hearing we had another gig in the town without enough time to get home to eat and change, immediately offered us a meal and facilities at their home. A wonderful meal with special people.

Garstang Arts & Music Festival 2010

Yesterday afternoon we were in our usual spot at the Garstang Arts & Music Festival.

The weather had been very mixed and indeed after an hour or so we had a really heavy shower that had us dismantling and hurrying everything into the building behind us.

After an hour I'd managed to dry everything out apart from my shirt and with the sun making sporadic apprearances we set up again and played a couple of hours, attracting a decent sized audience.

Here's a video of our version of Concrete and Clay.

Garstang Arts & Music Festival Part 2

Another day another gig!

We were back in Garstang today for our second spot at the festival. It was a busier day than Saturday and lots of people stayed for the entire afternoon. A few friends came to see us too. Old friends and brand new friends - it was nice to see John and Sue who we met on the cruise last week!

A few friends from Garstang Musical Productions (they used to be GLOG - Garstang Light Opera Group) came and Shelagh and Janet joined us for a couple of numbers. Apparently a Google search for GLOG finds my pages more than it did the light opera group - so now I've laid claim to the new name as well! Heh heh!

It was a great afternoon of music and some gentle comedy as David and I ribbed each other or told a few jokes.

The Mayor and Mayoress came for a word and a listen and the weather stayed just about fine until it was so close to our scheduled finish time that it made next to no difference. A couple of hours later though, the sky dropped so much water I think someone had scooped the sea up and thrown it! An excellent weekend in Garstang and great to see young folk dancing away to some of the 60s music!

Garstang Arts & Music Festival 2009

Our flight back from Corfu landed more or less on time last night at around 11:35pm. We were just a little thankful not to have been faced with several hours delay because we were due to be in Garstang with the band this afternoon! As it was our body clocks were two hours out of kilter and - blooming heck - isn't it cold!!!

The festival is a regular one for us but this year has been extended into the Bank Holiday. So rather than play on the Thursday as usual we have played today and will be back in our usual spot by the car park entrance on Monday afternoon around 12:30pm through until 4:00pm.

And it feels very nice to be described in The Garstang Courier as a "highlight" of the festival this year! Thanks for that and thanks to all those who came today to see us, to those who heard us from their car and recognised our sound from a gig on Cleveleys Promenade a few years ago, postponing a walk along the river to come and listen and make themselves known!

So we are back on Monday afternoon folks! Come and say hello, don't be shy, we're very approachable as long as you don't expect us to engage in conversation halfway through a song! (Strangely, some people do seem to expect that!!!)

Fingers crossed for the weather on Monday, today it just about held off for us and now we are back at home, shivering and yawning! It's c-o-l-d!!!

Witton Country Park Gig

Ooh, ahh, agh my back! Sigh, it was a long afternoon and now I've carted all the equipment back into the house from the car I'm ready to flop!

True there was a bit of rain, but actually it didn't put the audience off at all and they sat through it without any complaint.

The sun came out at intervals, the space in front of us stayed full all day and David was sporting a Billy Fury T-shirt.

It's been a bit of an autograph day as well for us. We don't get too many of those but sometimes when one person asks it can start a chain reaction going. So there's a few people in around 5 years time will be wondering who on earth it was that signed that bit of paper they found in a book or on a shelf or in a drawer!

News for those who normally travel to see us at Garstang Music and Arts Festival in August. This year we are unable to make the usual Thursday spot but the festival has been extended to the Bank Holiday Monday and we will be appearing, probably in our usual spot on Bank Holiday Monday 31 August 2009. Confirmation of the exact place and times later!

Garstang Music And Arts Festival

Were we lucky or what?!? At 6:30am this morning the Heavens opened and as the radio news came on half an hour later it was all about floods and dire warnings.

We got to Garstang early and the sky was cloudy but it was dry. We set up and played an hour and a half then there were a few spots of rain. We switched off and covered over and took a lunch break whilst the rain stopped and blue sky inched its way over us.

By the time we started again at 2:00pm we had bright sunshine and a decent sized audience. We played our way through the 1950s and 1960s and then launched into Status Quo's Rocking All Over The World. It was like switching on an audience magnet. People started coming our way from every direction and we ended the afternoon with a few rock and roll numbers each one generating enthusiastic applause.

All day the fire brigade were just a couple of hundred yards down the road pumping away water from a flooded stretch of road!

Chilled...

I'm just starting my annual summer break.

Fran's still working this week so it's my catch-up-with-all-the-things-I-haven't-done-yet week. Not fun things I hasten to add, though I may try to sneak some of those in as well. Nope - there's the floor in the spare room to reclaim, the fence to paint, the photos to be re-hung in the hallway that were taken down for the central heating to go in a year ago... You get the drift...

I took the first of the boxes of old CDs, DVDs, books and bits to the charity shop yesterday. Why are they so ungrateful? They either want it or not, but if not I'd rather they said and I'll take it somewhere else. Instead I got, "Oh, we're bursting with those things, I haven't got room, well if you just dump it there I'll have to put them in the toilet..."

I almost said "Where is it? I'll drown them myself..."

So the rest can go to the tip - easier for me. You can't pass on electrical goods these days because they should be PAT tested in case they electrocute someone who might sue so the old karaoke machine is definitely destined for the tip!

We used that for the band's very first gig before we bought a PA. Sheesh that's going back a bit! Seven years in fact - we've come on a bit since then and we hardly suspected then that we would be the sort of band we are now.

Talking of which - next Thursday we are playing at Garstang Music Festival, on the corner of the car park near the council offices. Depending on the weather of course as it's an open air gig with no cover. Previous years have been kind to us and we usually draw quite a crowd of onlookers as an audience.

The photo at the top of this post reminds me of a very chilled morning. It was taken at Woodbridge, near Ipswich very early one morning in 2003, where I was attending a meeting for work. I was awake early and got up to look at the river, being rewarded by this tranquil scene. The Sutton Hoo archeological site is close by this place. It was quiet, the water was like glass. It was February.

Chilled? To the bone!