Fylde Farm Weekend, 2013

Last night we played out at Treales for the Fylde Farm Weekend. As we turned onto the field and tried to spot the marquee we had to admit that it looked a lot larger show than in previous years.

As I walked past one of the food stalls, the owner calls out: "Creeping Bentgrass?" I nod and pause to chat. "You're one of my favourite bands!" he says. A good start to the night!

The stage area last year was laid on the grass, but this year we are on a raised platform. Although it still didn't have a curving staircase for us to make an entrance on...

Four and a half hours of non-stop music making later... What a brilliant night, thanks so much to the organisers and to all who came to listen, to sing along, to hand jive or get up to dance.

Car Club Gig in Blackpool

On Saturday 22 June 2013 we were out at the Coast Riders Cafe on Marton Moss, Blackpool playing for a car club.

We got there a bit early as the cars were being judged and I wanted a few photos. This MG ended up with the top trophy for the night.

A Jowett Javelin sports car - no, I don't remember them either...

I do remember the Consul Classic though! This Ford was the first British car with twin headlamps that I remember. I nearly bought one for £65 when I was 17 but in the end bought a chunky Hillman Minx for £40 instead - cheapskate!

And had I taken the blue guitar that night, this rather scrummy Jag E-Type would have just matched it!!!

But I had the red one with me instead...

And one to match the scratch plate!

Oh yes... and we played a bit of music as well...!

Myerscough College Open Day 2013

Sunday 9 June saw us at Myerscough College, performing at their Open Day for the twelfth year running.

We were both suffering a little from sore throats - we stayed away from the more raucous stuff until much later in the afternoon when we seemed to have powered through and all the symptoms disappeared!

The college has carried out a bit of building since last year and we were in a different place than usual, away from the stream of people walking to and from the car park. But people seemed to find us easily enough, including three ex-colleagues from 20 years ago when I worked at Preston College.

The sun was a bit fierce and I always forget that when playing a guitar the underside of my left arm is exposed. That was sore for a few days...

Eighth Year at Heskin Hall for Creeping Bentgrass

Phew! What a night! This event (and the marquee) has got so big now that we had a real challenge filling the place with sound. The soft surface of the marquee tent soaked it up and we ended up with the PA cranked higher than we've ever had it before, which gave us a few moments of feedback.

Add to that the fact that my guitar FX pedal seemed to have lost all of it's settings since we last played and I only had a few of the original codes for the different sounds in my head - we did without any fuzz effects for most of the night!

But we managed to control feedback and guitar wobblies enough to have the audience demand - what, an hour of encores? Fabulous! This event is now the one we look forward to the most during the year. We always have great fun and the audience is always ready to clap and stomp through the Irish join-in classics and then take to the dance floor later in the night.

There was a band playing on an outdoor stage as we arrived and they were sounding good. When we finished somewhere around midnight one of them came over to say in a shocked voice "You've played for four and a half hours!!!" I have to say from the throat - it feels like it too today... At 1:15am we had got everything packed back into the car and were sitting eating jam butties before setting off for home... Rock 'n' Roll!!!