A Wet Day at Myerscough

Well we've been playing Myerscough College's open day events for years but yesterday was the wettest one since our very first in 2002!

Despite that a phenomenal number of people braved the weather to come out to see everything that was going on, but understandably not a lot chose to sit on the row of chairs that had been placed in front of our spot! Some brave souls stood and listened, danced, sang and cheered and we thank you for that.

We played The Kink's Sunny Afternoon, but it failed to do the trick and so we resorted to Creedence Clearwater Revival's Have You Ever Seen the Rain which gave us a certain amount of audience participation...

We played it again several hours after the first playing and David related how someone had yelled "Sod off!" as they passed. Then he did a quick "oops!" and apologised for swearing but was then faced by a very indignant 5-year-old who tore him off a strip to the amusement of everyone around us. "There's lots of children here, you know!" she said, hands on hips. I promised to wash his mouth out with soap and she nodded and, with a final stern look, walked off back to her parents who were killing themselves.

The previous night we played out at Heskin Hall for a steam fair in a large marquee. It was good to hear Fran and Jeannie relate that they had heard someone at the entrance saying to his mates "Oh, great! They were here last year and they're fabulous!" A man of taste!

And yes, I know I'm supposed to be taking it easy because of the old ticker, but we cut down the set at Heskin from our usual 4+ hours and David keeps giving me dire threats if I start to set up or carry anything heavy before he's got there to help.

And finally, our thanks to Peter and Shelagh Cooney who came to Myerscough to do a set and give us a bit of a break. I appreciated it as I'd got a huge blister on one finger which burst and needed to dry up a bit before I could carry on. "Can you still play keyboards?" asked David. Relentless...

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...!

Garstang Music Festival

Today found us in Garstang in the same spot as last year, playing on Market Day for the Music Festival.

We had a great day and the paved area in front of us was filled for most of the day with people standing to listen on the street corners nearby.

Thanks to everyone who supported us and who contributed to the charity box. The ladies in the Council Office made very appreciative noises when we handed in a quite heavy box!

Also thanks to the many friends who turned up to support us and to listen and, in the case of Shelagh Cooney, to join us for a couple of songs!

Myerscough College Open Day

Ah... a brilliant day! The weather held off for us as we played our hearts out at Myerscough today. The rain hit with a vengeance as we were halfway home - now that's what I call a result!

We were feeling a bit fragile at first after last night - it was 2:00am when we got back and we were onsite at Myerscough for 9:00am! But once we started we were just on a roll!

We had lots of favourable comments, sold a few CDs, gave autographs and there may be a chance of a booking or two!

We had a guest slot as Peter and Shelagh Cooney joined us - Shelagh sings and plays penny whistle for us on "Fields of Athenry" on our "Kites" album and I joined them on guitar as they sang 3 or 4 songs early in the afternoon. Thoroughly enjoyed it too!

We worked out at one point that of the immediately past 20 hours we had played for 10 of them... We eventually had to stop when my fingers were so indented even despite all the layers of corn, that I was worried I might cause the hard skin to split! We finished with a blistering version of Johnnie B Goode and a chorus of shouts for more.

Many thanks if you stayed to listen, hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! A weekend off next week and then we have one a week for the next 4 weeks or so!