Sunnyside 2011 - Friday 18 March

Phew - it's been one of those weeks out on the road eating up miles and not getting much chance to sort out photos or thoughts! So let's go back just over a week to last Friday and we piled everything in the trusty MPV and breathed a sigh of relief as we considered that, had it had rafters, it would be full to them! We were taking our full set of gear down this time so with PA and speakers, keyboard and guitar, gig bag, stands and luggage and four people, we zoomed off down the motorway, stopping at every second services - drat these pills... The hotel we've used the last two years is now a Travelodge and a communal breakfast-free area so we were staying at the Sunley Conference Centre of Northampton University, who were providing a large room for the Friday night jam session. Lots of familiar faces there from years past and also some new ones. Some that I knew from the Billy Fury forum but had never met. In fact the first thing we saw was the Danmobile! Daniel Heeney, is a long-standing member of the billyfury.com forums but it was our first meeting. "Long-standing" suits him - he's a tall fella! And I loved his act on Friday night! Cathy and Jean were on hand to give me my first cuddles, Katie, Marie and Jan hadn't been able to make it alas! Likewise a few others but there was a good crowd of us. The Furygirls' favourite, Johnny Storm was there to wow them with his voice. Miss Franny came over all accusingly at me because he did one of her favourite Michael Bolton songs - er... yes, it's a while since we've done that one I know... MC, the fabulous Rob Dee called us up. Creeping Bentgrass took to the stage area and we set off with a Billy song - Like I've Never Been Gone, one of my favourites! We had a bit of help with Johnny B Goode (below) - he can be a bit of a handful that one! And at the end of the night we were surprised but very honoured to be asked back to play a live backing for all the performers from the night to sing Billy's best known hit, Halfway to Paradise. All the photos from Friday night are in a set at my Flickr account and the video of Like I've Never Been Gone is at the band's YouTube channel. Saturday night report to come...

Suspicion at Sunnyside

Am soooooo much in need of sleep after wonderfully welcoming weekend (a bit of alliteration for you there!) at Sunnyside, Northampton for the Billy Fury weekend.

A more detailed entry to come but for now before I climb or crawl up the stairs to dreamland... the opening number from our set last night: Elvis's Suspicion. G'night all...

CBG in Catforth

Last Saturday night Creeping Bentgrass played a social "Dance Nite" at Catforth Village Hall. My SatNav tried to take us down a dead end again. Luckily we recognised it as one that we tried before, having to turn back when it became a rut and yawning chasm-filled dirt track. Instead we did a somewhat circuitous route to get there... The journey back was much quicker as we decided to ignore the SatNav!

We set off with the usual country and folk sets to an enthusiastic audience. As the hall warmed up (literally), a couple of balloons exploded quite spectacularly close by my head - talk about playing under fire...!

We had a break whilst a hotpot supper was served and then came back complete with sparkly ties to play through the late 50s and 60s sets and a selection of smoochy ballads for dances "in hold" as David described it...

A great night with plenty of folk on the dance floor and lots of happy faces singing along at the tables.

We usually play for around 3 and a half to four hours on such nights and lots of friends ask how we can play so long.

Well if you play guitar regularly you just build up corn on the ends of your fingers and although some of it wears off after a full night's playing, as witness that night's photo of my fingers, it doesn't hurt any more than feeling a little tender and the following morning my fingers were back to normal again.

The next gig is the annual Billy Fury bash in Northampton in a fortnight. Looking forward to that!!!