Creeping Bentgrass Gig

Last night we played a gig for Garstang Light Opera Group's annual fund-raiser out at Claughton.

We had a great night there, with lots of comments about how tight we sounded as a band and how we get better each year.

Someone even went as far as to say he'd never heard me play a bad note and his guitar teacher had told him he had a good ear for music. Well, I suspect he wasn't listening closely enough - anyone who can get through a full night without at least one bum note is either a superb musician - or just isn't drinking enough...

No... before I get in trouble with the others, I should point out that we tend not to drink alcohol very much on a gig. Shandy is about the most virulent substance to pass our lips and once on stage, water is the staple diet!

Anyway, we had a number of new songs since we last played for GLOG - Kenny Rogers' The Gambler, Creed's Have You Ever Seen The Rain, Quo's Rocking All Over The World, Smokie's Living Next Door To Alice - hey you, keep those lyrics clean! - The Shadow's Foot Tapper, The Ronnettes Be My Baby, The Dave Clark Five's Glad All Over, The Beach Boys' Then I Kissed Her, The Bee Gees Words, The Turtles Happy Together, Billy Fury's A Thousand Stars...

It was a great night. Oh... and Fran got completely squiffy... She had us posing for a photo for ages whilst she kept pressing the on-off button...!

Large Versons of the Photos: on stage, posed photo

Trial By Jury

Last night we went off to Garstang to see the Garstang Light Opera Group present "Love's Roundabout", a collection of songs about love and marriage, which led nicely to the second half which was Gilbert & Sullivan's "Trial by Jury".

I particularly enjoyed Phillip Bourne's rendition of "Girls Were Made To Love And Kiss", a song I hadn't heard for years and "The Rose" sung with excellent 3-part harmony by Marion Gaughan, Shelagh Cooney and Ann Johnston.

Trial by Jury is only a short opera lasting only 40 minutes but full of wit and humour.

Probably more so last night than normally as the jury had decided to "embellish" their parts for the last night of the show, with a few well chosen props helping to show their boredom and lack of interest in the case - puzzle books, newspapers, someone got out their knitting at one stage... Oh and a couple of hand puppets and Johnny Vegas's monkey puppet appeared a couple of times, though he, at least, appeared to take an interest in parts of the proceedings!

Then it was off to the Church Inn for the usual last night after-show party. David is a member of GLOG and the band have done several gigs for GLOG fund-raising evenings so we are almost honorary members. In fact it's only all the travelling associated with my job that stops me being a member of this excellent group!

So I ended the night playing guitar along with Peter Cooney for a good old fashioned sing-song. Fran had the camera. In her bag... You just can't get the staff...!

7 Brides, 7 Brothers and a Preacher...

Last night we had the most excellent night out. We went to the Spring offering from GLOG - the Garstang Light Opera Group - who were staging "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers".

Band member David Lancaster is a member of GLOG and was playing the part of the Preacher. As usual he put in a fine comedic turn with lots of face pulling and a few ad libs here and there. There were some fine performances from Marion Gaughan as Milly and Roger Lloyd Jones as Adam and I must especially mention some of the younger members of GLOG who turned in blinding performances as the brides and brothers.

The more experienced of the cast being chastened to realise the script would have needed rewriting a touch as "Seven Widows for Seven Divorcees" perhaps? No matter! I always remember the excellent line from "42nd Street" which goes something like "Son, I've been playing juveniles on Broadway for 15 years and no one is going to tell me..."

As it was the last night for the show the cast traditionally have a last night after the show party, the last few of which Fran and I have been privileged to attend. I travel too much to be able to attend rehearsals to be a member, but the band play GLOG's fund raising evenings and I've sort of been adopted as a sort of associate member! In order that both David and Jeannie (who works behind the scenes) can enjoy the night I've always driven on these occasions.

Last night the party was held in the Church Inn, giving David the chance backstage to adopt his Preacher persona and announce "Everyone to the Church!". GLOG Chairman, Peter Cooney and I took along accoustic guitars and after the hotpot supper we gathered the cast of the show around us for a couple of hours of sing-a-long fun to the music of the Everly Brothers, Dylan and more...er.. did I somehow launch them into Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody???"