Creeping Bentgrass

A Night in Liverpool

2011-12-24T01:37:00.000-08:00

Last night we played at Croxteth Hall in Liverpool for a Silver Wedding and Revewal of Vows party. To all extents and purposes it was a wedding party.

It's a while since we've been to Croxteth and with new developments we took a wrong turning somewhere, but got there in good time without too much panic!

David knew the lucky man and he had arranged for a DJ to take over later in the night so that we could join the party as guests. There were a few people there that I knew as well so it was a very pleasant evening for us!

Can You Hear the Drums?

2011-12-22T05:04:00.001-08:00

So we were just having a rare rehearsal to remind ourselves of a few new songs we had stuffed into the repertoire...

Not the most polished sound - no microphones, no sound system, the keyboard is coming from its own speakers which of course point straight up and the guitar was plugged through the computer into the hi-fi. Recorded on a Flip camera - no expense spared...

Can you hear the drums?

Staining Charity Gig 2011

2011-10-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

Last night saw Creeping Bentgrass on stage at Staining Village Hall.

This was a night we had arranged ourselves and we had invited family, friends and people we have worked with year after year until they too can be classed as friends.

We do one of these every two years or so and they are informal, punctuated by guest appearances and a chance for us to try out new stuff to people we can trust to tell us if they don't work.

After years of having "Abba!" thrown at us we have capitulated and now "Fernando" and "Waterloo" (seen above being road-tested with The Creepettes - or is that the Bentettes?) are added to the repertoire.

We road tested a few last night in fact. The Single Girl, I Can Hear Music, You've Lost That Loving Feeling - the latter after we busked it in response to a request in Chapeltown a few weeks ago!

Then again, Jack who books us every year for his steam fair at Heskin Hall at the beginning of June has been asking for House of the Rising Sun for years. It is a bit of a voice-breaker but we have now come up with a bluesy version which went down a storm last night!

And talking of going down a storm - here was a bit of fun!

I walked off stage to leave David singing a West-End musical song - Love Changes Everything. It raised a few eyebrows but then I walked back on to join him in harmony from the second verse on and if we surprised the audience with a new style of song, then in turn we were blown away by the reception the song got at the end.

Thanks have to go to Miss Franny and Miss Jeannie for arranging raffles, hot pots and to willing helpers, Gill, Chrissie, David and Elaine, Claire, Shelagh, Janet and Doreen who dished out grub, sold raffle tickets, managed to separate people from money for the charities, to Marcus and his friend for arranging and manning the bar, to Shelagh and Peter Cooney for the guest spot, to the Bentettes: Louise, Marion, Janet and Shelagh, and to all of you who came from far and wide. A special mention to Harry and Maureen Whitehouse who had come over from Scarborough for the night. Harry is the head of the Peaksoft recording label and was responsible for convincing us to contribute to a CD of Protest Songs (see here) and he donated a copy for the raffle. Harry is also the man behind billyfury.com and so absolutely a VIP member of the audience!

A quick aside to Billy Fury New Zealand Fan Club Manager Moya Gleave here - Harry did stop a little short of giving me a "big sloppy kiss on the top of my head" but thanks for the thought...!

A huge thank you to all who came to see us - we didn't have much time to talk to anyone but it was great to see you there and we appreciate it so much!

After paying the expenses for the hall, bar and food we made £200 profit which will go to the two charities - a Cat Rescue Centre and Diabetic UK

Clubs and Pubs Weekend

2011-09-11T11:43:00.001-07:00

Creeping Bentgrass were out and about this weekend.

We started on Friday night at the Longshaw Sports & Social Club in Blackburn. This was a charity night in aid of the Mayor's charities.

An upstairs function room, a stage and some rather hot stage lights! The crowd set the standard for the weekend, crowding onto the dance floor early on in the proceedings!

Then on Saturday night we played for a 70th birthday party (that's two of those in a week!) out at the Chetham Arms, Chapeltown. Again the guests made a beeline for the dance floor early in the night and a good time was had by all.

Our appreciation and thanks to those who booked us, particularly for the very kind compliments and feedback and today has been a nice, relaxing day which didn't start until long after normal get-up time...!

A Fabulous Time at the Party

2011-09-04T01:47:00.000-07:00

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 in Garstang

2011-08-30T00:30:00.001-07:00

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 blog.

Dodging the Weather at Garstang

2011-08-28T01:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Playing Like High-Speed Gas!

2011-08-25T00:35:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we played for the British Gas Pensioners following an excellent meal at the Elgin Hotel, Blackpool.

Both David and Jeannie used to work for British Gas so we were invited to dine with them and the Elgin put on a superb meal. I have to praise their staff and manager too, who were so pleasant and accomodating it was a pleasure to be there.

We played two sets and David had devised a little extra involvement for the audience. As we played our country and folk set, he had distributed a list of all the pop and rock songs we do from the late 50s upwards and audience members were able to vote for their favourites for us to play in the second set.

It worked very well and some brave souls ventured out of the 60s voting enough to include both Westlife and Take That songs that we included.

All in all we enjoyed ourselves every bit as much as the audience and the Committee were full of praise for us afterwards which was very nice too!

Garstang Music & Arts Festival 2011

2011-08-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we played the Garstang Music and Arts Festival for the first of three appearances this year.

We will be back in the same place - our usual spot by the Information Centre next Saturday and Bank Holiday Monday.

From yesterday's spot, here's a taster!

Songs to Change the World

2011-08-08T05:17:00.000-07:00

Let no one say we don't mix in the right circles! This new release, Songs to Change the World has just been released by the Peaksoft label. It is an album of protest songs from the beginnings of recorded sound through to songs that were Internet download hits without troubling the official Charts.

We are featured on the opening track, having been asked by the man behind Peaksoft, Mr Harry Whitehouse, if we could record a song made famous in the early 1960s on the many CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) marches.

"The words of H Bomb's Thunder" (writes Harry in the sleeve notes) "were written by the best-selling novelist John Brunner and set to the traditional tune Miner's Lifeguard in 1958. Its haunting melody has helped it to live on in the memories of those who marched 50 years ago."

It was recorded by a youth choir on an early LP record, long since deleted and unavailable and Harry asked us if we could contribute an arrangement for this album.

This is not the first Peaksoft compilation we have contributed to, but never before have we found ourselves in such exalted company as Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson, Billie Holliday, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Ewan MacColl and others. But nice to be in the company of our fellow artiste from Harry's Billy Fury website; the Gentleman from the Isle of Wight, Johnny Storme!

The CD is available through the merchandise page of the Billy Fury website, from the Peaksoft website, or from Amazon and some independant retailers.

New Card

2011-07-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

I've just had 500 business cards printed off from this new design by graphic designer Katherine Metcalfe. Katherine designed our banner (below) that we use at events using some of the same motifs and I asked her if she could come up with a new business card for us.

Seeing as she's my cousin and therefore quite biassed in favour of the band, she agreed with no more than a few gentle turns of the thumbscrews!

Thank you Cuzzy!

Ruby Wedding Gig

2011-07-24T06:29:00.000-07:00

Last night we played at a private house party to celebrate a 40th Wedding Anniversary.

To have a live band playing in your home - even as small in member numbers as we are - requires a fair amount of room! Last night we even had space for a dance floor and we had a great night with loads of great comments at the end.

Fylde Vintage Weekend

2011-07-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

I've been reminded I missed a gig report! A few weeks ago was the Fylde Vintage Weekend, a chance for classic cars, tractors, traction engine and farming equipment to come together for a weekend of displays, some with real live sheep and some without...

David caused a bit of controversy shortly after we arrived. To our surprise we saw him crouched down with his camera lens poking through a tent flap.

"What are you doing?!?" we asked. "I was photographing birds!" he replied... What? By poking your lens into their tent?!? Is that not an arrestable offence?!?

Luckily not...!

We played in the beer tent marquee on Saturday night and had a cracking night.

I was starting to think we wouldn't get away - I don't think we have ever been shouted back for so many encores. It was a good night and a great audience!

A special mention has to go to Rosie the dog who barked her appreciation at the end of every song! I suspect it may have been the clapping that set her off, as she even joined in at the appropriate places in The Wild Rover! Or perhaps that's her boyfriend...

Creeping Bentgrass at Larbreck Hall

2011-06-26T05:26:00.001-07:00

Last night we played Larbreck Hall Caravan Park. The residents had created a stage area for us and there was a brilliant crowd sitting to clap and hand jive, singing, or up on their feet to dance.

Someone had spent a lot of time constructing the stage and there were rope lights, fairy lights and mirror balls all over the place!

Thanks to the Larbreck residents, summer visitors and holiday makers for making our night such a pleasure - hopefully we did the same for you!

Wedding Gig at Garstang

2011-06-19T07:20:00.001-07:00

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!

Weekend Gig Reports

2011-06-07T01:05:00.000-07:00

It was a busy weekend for us.

On Saturday night we were at Heskin Hall for the annual steam fair and played in a packed marquee. Always a good audience, they were in a terrific mood this time and lifted us so that we were on the top of our game as well.

One of those gigs where we could do nothing wrong and we ended with no less than four encores!

It was 2:00am when we got home to bed and then we were on site for our next gig at 9:00am Sunday morning...

After several days of warm sunny weather it dropped a good 10-12 degrees of warmth on Sunday for an outdoor gig at Myerscough College's Open Day.

This is where we all got together as a band so it's always a pleasure to go back to Myerscough. I'm told there are few letters received after an open day that don't mention us specifically. We had a great, if cold, day and started playing around 10:30am going all the way through to 4:30 with just a short break for some lunch. Must be a record for us... my fingers certainly knew about it by the end of the day!

Loads of interest shown, lots of friends to see and lots of folk commenting favourably. Thanks go to the enthusiastic dancing girls who kept coming round from whatever they were doing and adding to the fun!

Back in Witton Park

2011-05-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

Today we were back in the courtyard at Witton Park Blackburn for the Family Fun Day.

Whilst we had an audience throughout the afternoon the weather had not been so good. We clocked just 9 degrees temperature as we drove to the park. It was fine but dull and cloudy so no big crowds today. Frustratingly the sun came out half an hour before we finished - just that bit too late to tempt people out!

A huge thank you to those who came to see us. We will next be at Heskin Hall in Chorley in the marquee following the Annual Steam Fair on Saturday 4 June and the following day at Myerscough College's Open Day.

Witton Park

2011-05-11T05:22:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday saw us in our usual spot at Blackburn's Witton Park. That spot, more specifically is in the old courtyard near to the cafe in the doorway of one of the stables.

We've been honoured to be asked to play at Witton Park for several events during the year over the past five or six years and when the weather is good to us we always get a large audience. In fact even when it's tippling down and we are dry in our stable, people are often willing to sit or stand in the rain to listen! Hardy folk in Blackburn!

On Sunday it did rain a couple of times but not for long and there was a really good atmosphere in the courtyard.

There was a fairground farther down from us, displays of birds of prey and small animals, tractor rides and Myerscough College had lots of displays on too.

We tried out a few new songs for the first time - if young girls start to film us doing a Take That song we couldn't have been too bad... unless it's now on YouTube labelled "Two old wrinklies try to do..."

We'll be back at Witton on Spring Bank Holiday Monday.

Sunnyside 2011 - Saturday 19 March

2011-04-01T01:07:00.000-07:00

The second half of my report of our annual Billy Fury tribute at the club which saw his final public performance.

Saturday dawned and we sat down to an excellent cooked breakfast before heading into Northampton for a look round. In past years we've gone into Wellingborough so it was a morning of discovery, which I'll show a little of in another entry. I know they are a bit few on the ground recently, I've been rather busy!

Then we headed for Sunnyside to suss out the new layout. The old club layout has now totally gone and the place is a pub restaurant. The new layout works very well for that, with new wall partitions with gaps or "windows" cut through to allow views into different parts of what once was the concert room.

The old stage area at the bottom end of the large room is therefore cut off from the rest of the space. It was reached down a ramp from a slightly higher floor at the back of the room where there was a bar. The balcony created by the higher floor extended down one side of the ramp to overlook the stage area on the left, whilst on the right, tables gave a same-level view of the stage area with access on that side into the main pub.

It was in this area that we set up the stage to allow a viewpoint from as much of the room as possible.

It did mean that the artists were singing to a line of people getting progressively taller on the ramp, but it worked fairly well!

We had been asked to bring our own kit this year as, rather than a band, the main professional act was Johnny Red, a well-known local act with a great Billy tribute set. Taking all our own gear meant that we needed a full half hour to set up. We decided to leave this until later as once Johnny Red had set up his very comprehensive stage gear, a crowd of singers gathered to test their tonsils around the mic and we walked back to the hotel to get showered and changed.

Then I got the PA, speakers and keyboard set up and we blasted through our version of Bad Moon Rising to test the sound, Jeannie and Miss Franny running round the different areas of the place to listen for any imperfections in the sound - hiccups, burps, slurred words, bum notes, swear words, that sort of thing...

We'd had to crank it up a bit because of the size of the room and standing just in front of the speakers, I have to say we enjoyed ourselves immensely on that test; it was obvious that a ripple of excitement had gone round the room and it was a struggle to force ourselves off, but we did!

More new faces turned up - I'd never met Russ Dee or Roger Sea before, despite having "known them" from the billyfury.com forums for years and it was great to shake their hands and catch up.

And then, such was the number of artists attending, the music started at 4:30pm. Dave Jay, thwarted from walking into the audience by the new layout, still delivered some cracking numbers and then switched on his polished MC mode, introducing each act. There are very few seats now with a view of the stage. People were standing and crowding around the gaps and doorways through the new walls and partitions.

It did make it a bit frustrating but the sound carried and there was plenty of applause and cheering and a really brilliant atmosphere and there were some absolutely superb acts.

Jane Hubert made her Sunnyside debut with some fabulous vocals. She sang a fast Helen Shapiro song and then started "Funny... but it's true..." and I went cold and all the small hairs on the palms of my hands - er... I mean back of my neck - stood up. Wonderful!

Roger Sea had a brilliant mirrored jacket - I want it when he's done with it ha ha! We followed Michelle Gibson onto the stage. David had blabbed it was my birthday and Dave Jay got the audience to sing Happy Birthday to me. As he said, "suitably embarrassed"!

Harry, the organiser (who has obviously got to know us by now), came to whisper in my ear to make sure we finished our set on time! We started with an Elvis number, Suspicion (the video of this is at YouTube) and then went through our set, ditching a planned number in order to get in a request from the audience dedicated to the perfect woman - When You Say Nothing At All...

We had to ditch another song in order to finish on time (a Cliffy too - Moya would have loved that one...) as both having to bring instruments forward from the back of the stage and the Happy Birthday bit had eaten into our time, but when I checked my watch we had finished on the dot of our allotted time - by heck, and I still had a joke or two in hand...

Laura and Emily followed us after the raffle. A brilliant set and two great girls - we were chatting with them later (closely watched by Miss Franny and Jeannie of course...)

Johnny Red delivered a great tribute act to Billy and then we all came on for the traditional rendition of Halfway to Paradise to finish the night.

A brilliant night! Everyone calling for a repeat next year. Everyone happy. Everyone quite willing to have stayed another few hours and sung some more. Harry, we salute you. Sunnyside 2012 will be on 16-17 March. Can't wait!

Sunnyside 2001 - Friday 18 March

2011-03-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-09T23:53:00.001-08:00

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!!!

Tickets for Catforth 5 March

2011-02-27T10:17:00.001-08:00

I'm told there are still a few tickets left for our show at Catforth Village Hall on Saturday 5 March 2011.

Starting at 7:30pm through until 11:30pm the night is advertised as a "dance nite" and the admission fee of £10 includes a hot pot supper.

More details about the event available by following the link, including contact details of the organisers for tickets etc.

You can find a map here.

On The Wireless...

2011-02-19T09:23:00.000-08:00

This morning we were the studio band for Preston FM's Saturday Brunch, a light-hearted music and chat magazine-style radio programme.

We had an absolute ball, the programme had some great guests including Neil Thomson from Blackpool's Grand Theatre and Henry Metcalfe, currently playing Jacob in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Preston's Charter Theatre.

We got to play seven songs with a range of different styles from Gypsy Woman (Country) through Irish (Fields of Athenry) to 60s folk (The Boxer), through the 1950s and 60s with Billy Fury, Buddy Holly and Creedence Clearwater Revival and we finished the show with a rock and roll self-indulgence - Johnny B Goode!

A little added pressure was provided with the presence of the organisers of a local Battle of the Bands! Here were two guys well into their music. Luckily they seemed satisfied with what they saw and heard! Well at least they didn't laugh!

Our thanks to the show's presenter, Mark Howard (runs a marathon during the show to take the mic to different people around the tables) and the really laid-back "techie" Richard, patiently keeping his hand in the air counting down the time until Mark looked up to see it!

We loved it! I keep trying to scrape the smile off my face, but it's stuck...

Garstang Festival Booking 2011

2011-02-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

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!

Join us for Saturday Brunch!

2011-01-29T04:19:00.001-08:00

Ooh, here's a bit of excitement!

Creeping Bentgrass will be the live studio band on the radio programme Saturday Brunch broadcast between 10:00am and 12:00am on Saturday 19 February on Preston FM.

Broadcast in the Preston Lancashire region on 103.2 FM or online at http://www.preston.fm

Radio, so no need to wear masks... If any listeners would like to know what we look like, we are in our early 30s, tall and slim, straight hair and curly teeth... We each have our own full set of cutlery.

Christmas and New Year Gigs

2011-01-01T03:11:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-28T04:29:00.001-08:00

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...

Frolicking in Frodsham

2010-11-21T03:31:00.000-08:00

Are you allowed to frolic in Frodsham? I'm not sure - this is, after all, the posh area near Chester and we went out to the Golf Club last night to play for a 50th birthday party.

It was a double celebration as the birthday was that of twins Michael and Carolyn. Does that make it a 100th birthday party? Oops no...!

Michael even joined us to sing Jim Reeves' Welcome to my World and got a huge round of applause for his efforts!

Michael is seen here with wife Yvonne, listening to us trying to follow his spot! Another highlight was a quiz which asked guests to identify which of the twins was the first to walk, talk and be potty trained...!

Chetham Arms, Chapeltown

2010-09-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

Fantastic extended lunchtime gig today at the Chetham Arms in Chapeltown arranged by the Friends of Turton Tower.

We had to laugh when we got there because the shirts we had chosen to wear almost blended into the wall! We were just heads floating on a few white stripes!

But luckily the audience managed to overcome any squeamishness at this strange state of affairs and we had a really enjoyable afternoon.

I even managed to do a solo number! Is David admitting he's not worthy or saying "For pity's sake, STOP!!!"???

Turton Tower Sunday New Venue

2010-09-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

For anyone planning to see us at Turton Tower on Sunday afternoon the venue has been changed in case the weather turns... well it doesn't need to turn really does it?

We will be playing in the Chetham Arms in nearby Chapeltown, Lancashire between 1:00pm and 4:00pm.

Three cheers for those nice folks at Rimmers Music, Blackpool and Yamaha Service Dept. for mending the keyboard!!!

Another Day, Another Gig in Garstang!

2010-08-30T13:05:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Morecambe FC Part 2

2010-08-15T01:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were back at the new Globe Arena in Morecambe to play for an hour and a half before the match. There were some seriously mouth-watering smells coming from food being served in the room.

Thanks to all those who gave us such wonderful feedback and comments both about yesterday and our performances on Tuesday.

BBC League Cup Show Appearance

2010-08-12T02:51:00.000-07:00

Well, perhaps the two cameramen weren't both from Sky... We picked up a goodly 2 seconds of exposure on BBC One's League Cup Show last night with the camera zooming into the band.

It can be seen (for a week only I expect) here: BBC iPlayer

Creeping Bentgrass at the Globe Arena

2010-08-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

Great night last night as we played at the very first home match at Morecambe Football Club's new Globe Arena.

We were filmed by a Sky Sports News crew, playing before the match.

I had a little trouble with feedback through the guitar for some reason - never happened before but the ceiling was very low where we were and there were accoustic panels next to us bouncing sound back so I suspect it may have been that. We set up in a corner during the match, coming off the stage area and it improved enough to allow us to play a decent volume with a clean guitar sound.

We had to keep away from anything requiring fuzzed guitar but we have over 6 hours of material to draw on and we played for only a couple of hours after the match.

We got some good feedback (from guests and staff rather than the unwanted sort) and picked up another booking for a wedding and are back at Morecambe FC for a pre-match spot on Saturday! Morecambe won their match against Coventry 2:0 so it was a winning night all round!

Lancaster Golf Club

2010-08-01T04:53:00.000-07:00

A brilliant night last night out at Lancaster Golf Club.

It was meant to be an open air event with a bar-b-que but the weather was most definitely not looking conducive to sitting outside and so we set up inside the clubhouse where we treated club members to some gentle songs whilst they ate and then went into full-on 60s mode and got them singing along and dancing.

We had a break whilst the prize giving ceremonies were conducted and then wound up the night with some rock and roll and then some gentler tunes for couples to dance together.

A very enthusiastic audience - we have to say a big thank you for making us so welcome and we look forward to coming back on New Year's Eve!

Squashed Into the Kiosk!

2010-07-31T03:57:00.000-07:00

New venue for the band again last night. We played last Saturday at Turton Tower for the start of a walking festival and it was the end of the walking festival last night. The walkers were a little tired after tramping about for a full week I should imagine...

We were at the Olde England Kiosk in Darwen and weren't exactly sure what to expect from the name - visions of trying to play in a telephone box inevitably sprang to mind!

But we needn't have worried as the "kiosk" is an old lodge with a hall that will take 80 or so people quite happily.

I didn't fare too well in the photograph stakes last night for some reason. Everyone seemed to take the opportunity of setting up to take photos of the top of my head... This was the best of those from my point of view and some will never see the light of day... or the dark of night either for that matter...!

And I'm not sure why I'm looking so despondant here either. Sigh... It was an excellent night despite an extremely wet start and we had a brilliant time, with a hotpot and mushy peas supper and some enthusiastic dancers.

We played Clapton's Wonderful Tonight for the first time in public and it sounded very nice and certainly brought dancers together instead of the modern minimum 12-inch gap we see so often!

I'm not really sure what Miss Franny thought was so appealing here as to warrant a photograph but she seems to think it "turned out rather well"...

Playing at Turton Tower

2010-07-25T03:30:00.000-07:00

Creeping Bentgrass were booked to appear at Turton Tower yesterday afternoon for the launch of a Walking Festival. We will be at the Olde England Kiosk on Friday night in Sunnyhurst Wood to celebrate the end of the festival too. Though they are not that far apart come to think of it, so if it takes anyone 5 days to walk from Turton Tower to Sunnyhurst Wood then they aren't trying! Far enough that I'd not try it though! Somehow I don't think that walking from one to the other is the aim of the Walking Festival to be honest!

We arrived a little early in order to give ourselves time to find the venue, which I'd not visited before.

Turton Tower is one of Lancashire's old halls. The house was built during the Tudor and Stuart period in the 1600s, though by making additions to a Pele tower which had been built in 1420. It was bequeathed to the local council in the 1920s and has been open to the public since 1974. More information can be found at the website of the Friends of Turton Tower.

We were sited against the wall of the tower and the kitchens to the tea room (from which came a wonderful range of smells throughout the afternoon and also a peal of delicious laughter at one point - not sure what was going on, but I did ask to join in, which got a laugh from the audience!

There was a wonderful view before us. Picnic benches were dotted around the grassed area where we were playing and we had a number of people listening to us throughout the afternoon, whilst over the hedges and fence opposite, woodland stretched in front of us an people walking along paths in the middle distance waved to us as they walked with family and dogs. The Mayor, who was present for the launch of the festival came to meet us and helped make it more of an occasion and the staff at the house were fantastic.

A sudden shower made us stop for a moment to withdraw under the cover of our gazebo, but we were soon set up and playing again and the audience were very brave, staying put. Sure enough it soon passed over and apart from having to shuffle a bit more backwards as the gazebo roof started to drip a bit we were fine. The sides of the gazebo were utilised to provide matching speaker covers!

It was a wonderfully relaxed afternoon. We were on form and we had a very appreciative audience - for this type of open air gig such enthusiastic applause is rare and was very much appreciated by us. This year has been busy for us. We normally play around a dozen gigs a year but yesteday was already the 13th public performance of 2010 and there's enough in the diary to take us to twice our normal quota before the year's end.

The first gig using the new car too - all the gear went in the back without too much trouble and David and Jeannie were able to sit on the back seats without having to share footspace with speaker stands!

Wharles the Heck Are We?

2010-07-03T05:32:00.000-07:00

Last night we played a Steam Fair in Wharles, which is an area out in the Fylde countryside between Kirkham and the M55 motorway.

It was one of those all too familiar bewildering happenings.

We had a phone call from Jack, who does the steam fairs out at Chorley and he had told us it was Saturday night in Treales (which is an area out in the Fylde countryside between Kirkham and Wharles...)

Then David got a call to say it was Friday in Wharles and thought we wouldn't be able to do it because I was due to be working in Plymouth on Friday. However, having turned it down with the organisers, he phoned Fran on Thursday night and she was able to tell him I was on my way home (from Hertfordshire) because the event in Plymouth had been cancelled. (Following this ok?)

We loaded the car for the last time - I've swapped it in today for a new Mazda - and followed the SatNav as we weren't really sure where Wharles was.

It took us down a road labelled as a dead end, but we figured that as we were in a field it could well be correct. The road tuened into a track and the track turned eventually into ruts and potholes and after a mile and a half with 3/4 of a mile still to go the surface was getting me worried about the bottom of the car and I had to reverse a mile before we could turn round to go through Kirkham to get to it on surfaced roads. The SatNav woman refused to apologise and kept trying to make me turn back to try again...

"Turn around when possible" kept being met with a chorus of "P*** off"

Anyway, we found it in the end and had a great night with a smallish but enthusiastic crowd. It went pitch black outside. Going to the loo was a painful experience for one member of the audience as he walked into a 3-foot high metal pole that had been erected to mark out a pitch.

Fran was gingerly coming back from a visit, feeling the way cautiously in the dark when someone came out of the disabled loo and banged the door just behind her. "I'm gobsmacked you didn't hear me scream, I jumped out of my skin!" she said.

So to the garage who took my Mondeo in part exchange, I'm sorry about all the mud caked all over it...

A Touch of Festival Atmosphere at Larbreck Hall

2010-06-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

After several years of playing inside the Great Barn at Larbreck Hall Caravan Park, our annual visit coincided with some good weather this year so we played on the green behind the farmhouse and car park.

Numbers weren't quite as high as at Glastonbury, but they spread themselves around a bit and there was certainly a great atmosphere and an enthusiastic response from the audience to every number. The Eagles' Lyin' Eyes got a first play last night too and (even if I do say so myself) sounded a bit spivish rare! We normally find that any song that sounds right from the very first playing (and at the start of the evening David hadn't even heard the backing arrangement!) then it will become a firm favourite for future gigs!

So we swapped the usual backdrop of spare caravans for a backdrop of cars and minibuses, but we had a great night and started off with the sun in our eyes, ending in the glare of our mobile spotlights as the temperature plummeted and only stopped when it got cold enough for the condensation to form on every surface and we decided there were too many electrics for that to be ignored!

RIP my mic stand too - the thread stripped and I had to use it as a straight-up instead of being able to use the boom arm. An interesting experience leaning over the guitar to sing and impossible to play the keyboards and lean far enough over to sing into the mic... A visit to the music store called for before our next gig!

A quick thanks to all the people who have bought the The Sunnyside of Creeping Bentgrass album and told us it's our best yet! We must start on the next one - though first we are planning to release a folk album as we have continually had to turn down requests for one. This will be a compilation of all the folk style songs from previous albums plus a number of new tracks. No telling when we'll have The Folk Side of Creeping Bentgrass ready at this stage but we are hoping to have it out by the end of 2010.

Myerscough College Open Day 2010

2010-06-12T08:31:00.000-07:00

Sunday 6 June was the day of Myerscough College's Open Day. Creeping Bentgrass were in their usual spot near the greenhouses of the Plant Centre and after setting up the weather quickly made us retreat under our large gazebo.

It didn't rain hard and it certainly didn't stop the numbers attending, but for the second year it meant that the chairs set out for the audience were a bit too damp to entice people to sit down. Later in the day it got better and we had a good day with both troupes of dancing girls and a platoon of the Home Guard enlivening the day!

(We must get them to mention us by name in publicity...)

Heskin Hall Steam Fair 2010

2010-06-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

On Saturday 5 June Creeping Bentgrass were back at Heskin Hall to play in the marquee during the annual steam fair.

It's usually a great night and this year was no exception with a couple of the traction engine owners being dressed complete with bowler hats and looking rather like Homepride Flour graders...

We ran through the whole range of styles from Country to Irish Folk through the 50s and 60s to Status Quo and Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds and we got some brilliant feedback after we had finished and were loading stuff back into the car for the following day at Myerscough College's Open Day.

National Family Week, Picnic Day at Witton Park

2010-05-31T13:02:00.000-07:00

Another fabulous afternoon for us at Witton Park today as we played in the courtyard for a Family Picnic Day as part of National Family Week.

We unveiled two new songs. David has been wanting to sing Tell Laura I love Her ever since we got together - he has a thing for songs with a death in them...!

Actually he's been suffering from a chest infection all week so he did really well today. The wives overheard a member of the audience saying "I wish I could sing like that even without a chest infection..."

Bah! I'm sure he was just out to get the sympathy vote!

The other new song was Concrete and Clay familiar to any 60s child but not often heard these days. You'll definitely hear it from us in future!

Blackburn's fast becoming our second home this year - we're at Turton Tower on Saturday 24 July 2010 and will be performing at the Walking Festival Showcase at Sunnyhurst Wood on the evening of Friday 30 July.

Club Night in Blackpool

2010-05-21T01:32:00.000-07:00

It's not actually all that often that we play in our home town of Blackpool. But last night was one of the exceptions.

We were at the Highfield Road Club for a social evening for ex-servicemen and their wives. So did they want nice easy relaxed music? No...

"Status Quo!" came a shout from the audience as we threatened them with Cliffy... So Status Quo they got!

We had a great night, singing, playing and joking our way through an hour and a half of good old-fashioned fun! Fran and Jeannie seemed to mop up in the raffle too... We came away with a bottle of brandy and one of Martini... Honestly... you can't take them anywhere!

Witton Park

2010-05-10T00:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our first visit of the year to Witton Park in Blackburn. It was for an Open Day event arranged by Myerscough College and there were all sorts of things going on. We had reptiles, snakes and a hog roast going on near us and there were carriage rides, tractor and trailer rides a large fairground and lots of stalls throughout the park showing the different courses and career paths the college caters for.

We were in our usual spot in the courtyard and what a fabulous day we had. People were waiting for us when we turned up in the morning. "We saw you last year and hoped you'd be back!"

We set off at 11:00am and apart from a 20 minute break for lunch we played straight through until gone 4:00pm. I know my fingers were smarting somewhat from the guitar strings!

A string broke during Cliff Richard's Move It and I finished the song on keyboards with a piano sound. Of all the songs... It's in the key of E with far too many black keys involved!!!

Apparantly 8,000 came through the gates and whilst they didn't all come to see us, we had a decent sized crowd watching us all day with a few people staying with us for the full day.

We're back at Witton on Spring Bank Holiday Monday. It's a family picnic day event so bring your picnic or buy it from the cafe in the corner of the courtyard and come and join us for another day of music!

70 Years of Billy Fury

2010-04-18T02:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday found us out at the Billy Fury event in Liverpool. 17 April 2010 would have been Billy's 70th birthday but for the tragedy of his early death in 1983.

We met up with David and Jeannie for breakfast in Blackpool and then drove down to Liverpool where the Billy Fury, In Thoughts of You fan club were celebrating his life at a meeting at Billy's statue on the waterfront next to the Mersey on which he worked for a short time.

There were already a number of people gathered at the statue which was covered in flowers, cards and balloons. As one o'clock drew near it was hard to count everybody but I'd have reckoned between 150-200 people.

The fan club arrived with refreshments and set up tables and Billy's Mum, Jean Wycherley arrived looking and sounding cheerful, smiling and chatting to Billy's fans and friends. A chair was found for her and she sat at the foot of the statue whilst cameras blazed away from all sides.

Colin Paul, the well-known performer, who includes a Billy tribute in his act, hosted the day for the fan club and called everyone over to the Maritime Museum on the nearby Albert Dock where a room had been booked.

There was a raffle, a quiz to identify Billy's songs from a split second of the opening - we decided we wouldn't stand a chance given we were surrounded by hardcore Billy fans, but in the event we'd have made it into the bottom ranks of prize winners had we written our ideas down!

Then a few songs from Colin Paul before another refreshment break following which we had a bit more music.

He sang a new tribute song to Billy, The Gentle King which was superb. Colin had written the words to the song himself and I'm sure all Billy fans will be delighted if they order a copy of his CD, available through billyfury.com.

The Colin called a few performers from the audience. Jean Wycherley sang In Thoughts of You to rapturous applause. The big man with the big heart, Paul Staines from London gave us a song, there was one from someone whose name I didn't catch and then Colin was calling David and myself up. Talk about a build up! "...privileged to work with them at Sunnyside..." and more - thank you Colin. All we can say is that if Billy was the "Gentle King of Rock and Roll" then you are the true Gentleman of Rock and Roll, it is likewise a privilege for us to know and work with you.

We had no instruments of course and we don't do backing tracks or karaoke, so we did an acapella version of Billy's Like I've Never Been Gone, sharing a mic as there was only the one - I got horrendous bristle burns from David's beard...

The only disappointment of the day was that Billy's brother, Albie, was too ill to join us. He has to have dialysis several times a week and was in hospital on the day. Albie, we wish you well and hope to see you at some future event.

Nice to see Colin again, Marie, Frank and Pat, Margaret, Mags, Paul, Mike, Mark (Little Elvis!!!) and to meet new friends too. Several people were heading down to Mill Hill where Billy rests and where there will be another meet and event today. We can't make that one but send our love to all our friends who will be there.

Photos will eventually appear at Flickr, hopefully later today.

Billy Fury Weekend

2010-03-26T01:14:00.000-07:00

Friday 19 March. We bundled keyboard, guitar, bag of cables, microphone stands into the car boot and then took it all out again to get the suitcase in before setting off to pick up David and Jeannie. All the stuff had to come out again whilst we rearranged the jigsaw in the boot and then we were off, throwing money with wild abandon and using the M6 toll road to save a bit of time, then stopping at the services to use it up again... The sandwiches we had brought from home went down better with a few chips and then we were off again towards Northampton.

It was the weekend of the Sunnyside meeting where Billy Fury fans and many artists come together over the weekend to celebrate the life of one of England's first rock and roll stars and greatest singers. The Sunnyside club was the last venue ever played by Billy before his death at far too young an age in 1983.

One of the first people we met was Macclesfield artist, Dave Jay. We'd spoken on the phone many moons ago but it was the first time we'd met. We found a few people in the function room, but organiser Harry was getting nervous as top Billy tribute artist, Rob Dee was running late and couldn't be contacted. As Rob was providing the sound equipment for Friday night this could have led to a problem! We needn't have worried though, as Rob and wife Chris had been sitting in the car listening to a horse called A Thousand Stars (the title of one of Billy's hits) romping home at 20 to 1!!! "I should have had money on it!" said Rob.

We set up the gear and played a couple of songs to practice then Miss Franny and Jeannie firmly grasped our ears and led us off to the restaurant. Fed and watered we changed, David and I into matching red shirts. "We look like we've had the operation to separate us and are too tight to buy new shirts..." I said.

Harry had asked us to prepare an hour's set for the Friday night and we sat watching the other artists, loving every minute, but hearing many of the songs we had planned on singing. During one of the breaks I swapped a few files about on the keyboard so we wouldn't play all duplicates! Colin Paul who was the headline act for Saturday and who we had met at a Billy event in Blackpool sat next to us and said "I can't wait to hear you two!" "Why?" I asked. "I've heard so much about you!" he said. Well it isn't true Colin, it was an accident and anyway we were miles away...

There were a few singers we hadn't heard before. Last year was our first Sunnyside anyway, but this year we were impressed by the standards set by newcomers Dave Wilcox and Paul Ritchie along with singers we met last year such as Geoff Howlett, Phil Jennings, Frank Bucknall and more. Rob Dee gave us a few songs. He's a superb artist and as nice a man as you could care to meet. We were sitting with his wife Chris. Dave Jay sang and we mentally crossed Cliff's The Young Ones off our set list... but when we came out the audience were nicely warmed up and immediately started to sing along. Whether this was to drown us out or just because they were enjoying themselves wasn't clear...

We played a somewhat eclectic mix... I'd bet no-one has ever played Justin Hayward's Forever Autumn at Sunnyside before but it seemed to go down well! Then we got into a run of Billy songs, When Will You Say I Love You, Like I've Never Been Gone, Somebody Else's Girl, A Thousand Stars, King For Tonight, and the first public airing of a new arrangement of I'm Lost Without You.

At some point Rob Dee slapped a couple of wigs on our heads. By heck, I came over all nostalgic... Looking at the photos we look complete prats, but perhaps that's an improvement! Perhaps I shouldn't have made this photo clearer - we probably looked better half hidden by the smoke of Rob's smoke machine!

The following day we were at Sunnyside early and had lunch there. Very good it was too. We set up the gear, did a sound check and then sat down to enjoy the singers. Harry dropped the wonderful bombshell that Jean Wycherley was here. We all stood to welcome Billy Fury's mum. Paul Ritchie had the unenviable task of singing in front of her first, but handled it with what appeared to be ease and confidence.

Our slot came closer and we got changed into black suits, black shirts and sequinned cerise ties... The things I do... David and I went together into the disabled toilet to get changed - God knows what anyone outside might have thought, there was a great deal of hilarity ...

The ties looked as though our tongues were hanging out but across the room Jean Wycherley had noticed us and gave me a nod of approval - or perhaps she was laughing, I'm not sure... Yes I am, she's far too lovely a person to laugh at someone!

There wasn't a single ropey act that evening, they were all brilliant. Snowy gave us a rock 'n' roll set last year but gave us a few ballads this year. He looks the biz with his long hair and moves! Dave Jay had been roped in to act as MC for the evening as the booked MC had had to pull out. Two young sisters, Laura and Emily came on and sang Like I've Never Been Gone as a gentle ballad - the effect was stunning. By the time Laura had got halfway through the first line my eyes were just filling up...

We were following Geoff Howlett so we knew we had to be good. We played four of Billy's and a couple of other songs, David cracked a joke about The Night Has 1000 Eyes being about speed cameras. Well that's because late one night we were coming home from a gig at which he'd drunk a fair amount of liquid and I had to stop so he could relieve himself at the side of the road. I stopped next to a gatso and was dying for a speeding car to come past but... alas. Heh heh!

6 songs, 20 minutes, it is amazing how fast that goes. We came off and enjoyed the last few acts. Rob Dee closed the first half.

Then, what a superb headlining act in Colin Paul and The Persuaders. Total class. And a great guy aswell. He brought Billy's mum onto the stage and one week before her 89th birthday she sang In Thoughts of You, I joined some of the regulars from the billyfury.com website forum to join hands and dance at the front of the stage. We had an absolute ball.

Others have said what a great weekend it was and I absolutely agree. Ours wasn't over yet because once we got back to the hotel we ended up all four of us in our bedroom with a huge bag of chocolate and a bottle of cava plus the remains of a bottle of wine that Miss Franny and Jeannie had been glugging all night. It still had some in because it wasn't the first...

David half opened the bottle of bubbly then stood it on the window sill whilst he helped Jeannie take her boots off. Whilst this was going on the cork shot from the bottle with a sound louder than a sonic boom. It was gone midnight so sorry to anyone in the hotel who may have thought their time had come...

A huge vote of thanks to Harry Whitehouse and his lovely wife Maureen. Harry is the instigator and driving force behind billyfury.com and the Sunnyside weekends. He wasn't committing himself to arrange another but it was a superb weekend full of good humour, great friends both old and new and some fabulous live entertainment. What more could you want?

Large versions of the photos: there's a full set (or half a set at the moment but I'm working on it!) so rather than link each photo you'll find many photos at my Flickr account.

St Patrick's Night at Aughton Institute

2010-03-14T09:04:00.001-07:00

Last night we had an excellent time entertaining the folks at Aughton Institute.

It was a night of silly hats, green balloons and an entire run of our Irish repertoire - though for some reason David refused to allow me to play Delaney Had a Donkey...

Then once we had taken a break whilst the supper was served - well, we weren't missing out! - we carried on through the sixties and onto line dancing and then rock and roll. The ballads went down well last night too with couples getting up to dance to Billy Fury's A Thousand Stars, The Bee Gees' Words and Ronan's When You Say Nothing At All.

Nice to see Christine and Brian and several other people who have come to see us before and in response to a number of queries, yes we will be at Witton Park, Blackburn again this year on Sunday the 9th of May from 12:00 noon until 4:00pm as usual.

Large versions of the photos: top photo, bottom photo

Billy Fury Weekend

2010-02-14T07:05:00.000-08:00

We weren't able to be at the whole event of course, due to the Saturday night gig out at Windermere, but the Billy Fury In Thoughts of You fan club held one of their Billy weekends at the Metropole Hotel in Blackpool over this weekend.

We met up David and Jeannie no more than 10 hours after dropping them off last night and went down this morning to meet up with the fabulous Rob Dee and the headlining act from the weekend, Colin Paul, with whom we will be sharing the bill at the Sunnyside weekend over 19-20 March in Northampton in just 5 weeks time.

It was also a chance to meet and chat to Billy's mum, Mrs Jean Wycherley who, at the age of 88, gave us a quite brilliant rendition of Billy's hit In Thoughts of You.

She is seen here on stage with Colin Paul and of course her perhformance earned her a huge round of applause and a standing ovation from the crowd who had obviously had a great time over the weekend.

It was great to see Rob and Chris, Pat and Mags as well. We are so looking forward to Sunnyside, where we are headlining the Friday evening of the event and we'll be just one of many acts supporting Colin Paul and the Persuaders on the Saturday night.

Wedding Gig in Windermere

2010-02-14T06:39:00.000-08:00

Last night we played in Windermere. It was ages before anyone fished us out... No, we weren't in the lake, we were at the Lowood Hotel, up near Ambleside, playing for the wedding of Kelly and Steve in support of a rock band who took over from us later on.

An early night for us then but a great night none-the-less, as there were a few inflatable guitars being passed round the audience and we got people to come out with them to help us play some rock and roll numbers!

A Song for Christian

2010-02-07T01:35:00.000-08:00

We spent most of yesterday completing the recording of the song we sang for our friend Christian's funeral in October.

The song, chosen by Christian's family is a Christian song, with very moving words and is a little different to our usual style in that we've tried to keep it to a simple arrangement. There are no drums or beat until after the first verse and chorus and that meant we had some "fun" recording and editing the various instrument parts!

On saying it is a "simple" arrangement we still ended up recording a total of 9 separate tracks of instruments and voices - these are different tracks not re-takes of the same. It was an afternoon of the computer throwing wobblies and crashing the software too, but in the end it did come together and after a few attempts at balancing the different tracks we ended up with this version of I Can Only Imagine which will be added to the The Sunnyside of Creeping Bentgrass album as track 11.

Rocking at Winmarleigh Hall

2010-01-18T03:08:00.000-08:00

On Saturday 16th we played a 40th Birthday Party out in the West Lancashire countryside at Winmarleigh Hall.

There's a killer of a hump-backed bridge to go over the canal once you leave the A6 by Garstang! Until you get over the top of it you have no view of what is awaiting you on the other side. Luckily it was more road...

The party was spread over the room we were in, a reception room and a bar so we had competition from the row of pumps and bottles at least, but the dance floor filled nicely once we got going and we had an excellent turn from the birthday girl's parents who sang "Danny Boy" unaccompanied with some wonderful and well practiced harmonies.

I've been struggling with a bad back and for the first time ever had to sit down for some of the quieter numbers so as to save my back for the 60s stuff and rock and roll. Recently we've added a few new songs where I play the keyboard live so I was able to sit at the keyboard for those and therefore not come across as being too pathetic (I hope!)

We played a few new numbers which got good responses - measured not only by people applauding but by other people coming into the room to listen and by people interrupting their own conversations. Two in particular which gave us a real boost by the audience reaction were Westlife's You Raise Me Up and Billy Fury's Lost Without You.

Other songs played for the first time at this gig were Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes and The Beatles' Ticket To Ride.

The Sunnyside of Creeping Bentgrass

2010-01-14T12:08:00.000-08:00

Yay! It's here at last! Our long-awaited new album that we started as soon as we finished the last one! Two and a half years in the making! Our first album as a duo.

Called "The Sunnyside of Creeping Bentgrass" it contains 16 tracks which includes a solo track of John's - a cover of The Beatles' This Boy.

Sunnyside is the name of the club near Northampton that was the site of Billy Fury's last public performance prior to his untimely death in 1983. The front cover shows the band performing at the club for a memorial concert in March 2009 and we are proud to be returning in 2010 to play alongside some of the fabulous artists who have formed close relationships on the message boards of billyfury.com

The full track listing is given below. Some tracks can be downloaded from the band's website, or the album is available mail order from:

Creeping Bentgrass
195 Palatine Road
Blackpool
Lancashire
England

Each CD costs 5 UK pounds plus 1 UK pound postage and packing to addresses in the UK and 2 UK pounds postage and packing elsewhere. Payment must be made in sterling by personal cheque.

Track List:

The Gambler
Have You Ever Seen The Rain
Sweet Caroline
A Thousand Stars
Bunch of Thyme
Crystal Chandeliers
When You Say Nothing At All
Be My Baby
King For Tonight
Green Green Grass of Home
Living Next Door To Alice
The Night Has 1000 Eyes
Forever Autumn
Halfway To Paradise
This Boy
24 Hours From Tulsa
.

New Year's Eve at Eccleston

2010-01-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

We played in the New Year at St Agnes Social Club, Eccleston.

We had a fabulous night at this very friendly club and enjoyed a Jacob's Join buffet and a tough quiz based on recognising the first three words of pop hits. Even we struggled - and the act contained a few of them!

The first raffle prize winner wanted to take away the prize he had donated, because he said it was a good prize!

The MC, Len, kept us all entertained during the break with some very witty banter and we managed to fill the dance floor and have the audience singing along with us. At midnight we listened to BBC Radio 4 as Big Ben's chimes struck the turning of 2009 into the New Year and we played Auld Lang Syne and then You'll Never Walk Alone before another half hour of dance music.

A great way to spend New Year's Eve!

A very Happy and Prosperous New Year to all readers. May 2010 be filled with laughter, health, happiness, good friends and good fortune.

A Christmas CD at Amazon

2009-11-21T07:15:00.000-08:00

The band are featured on a new CD that has been released by billyfury.com in memory of forum member Pauline Swindells, who passed away recently. Johnny Storme, a great singer from the Isle of Wight, as nice a fella as you could hope to meet, sings a brand new song, Christmas Day Again, written by another forum member, Steven Sinclair

Good King Wencelas by Creeping Bentgrass is one of 9 tracks on the CD which can be ordered from the Billy Fury site above or direct from Amazon. Proceeds from the CD will be donated between the Earl Mountbatten Hospice, Isle of Wight and the Heart Fund at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool.

Rockin' in Eccleston

2009-11-15T02:26:00.000-08:00

We came, we saw, we rocked! St Agnes Social Club in Eccleston near Preston was our venue last night and the large audience was superb. They sang, they clapped, they danced and they laughed at all the jokes - I think we may take them on tour with us...

Against a pantomime backdrop (yes we did - no we didn't) we went through our first half selection of country, folk and Irish.

In the second half we almost turn into another band as we go through the 1950s, 60s and 70s through to line dancing and then rock and roll and Status Quo and then last night we went through a few ballads too as folk flocked to the dance floor.

Our host Len, was very funny on the mic and we enjoyed a hotpot and trifle supper between spots too. Oh yes... and that's the New Year's Eve slot taken care of too!

The Night Has 1000 Eyes

2009-11-08T07:44:00.001-08:00

Always a good one to belt out towards the end of a night on stage, I've been putting guitars and bass on Bobby Vee's hit The Night Has 1000 Eyes this afternoon.

That makes it 15 songs finished, one still needing guitars and 2 or 3 more to start for the new album. One of those will be the song that we sang at the funeral the other week to fulfil a promise, although it is a wonderful song anyway, very emotional and a little unusual for us in that it's not a well-known song.

We've not yet decided whether to put a solo one from me on the album. The three albums we've done so far have all featured a solo track - Great Balls of Fire on the first, Fleetwood Mac's Need Your Love So Bad on the Kites album and the relatively unknown I Try To Think About Elvis on the last one.

So the album is moving closer bit by bit... I bet you're fed up of me saying that, aren't you...?

Aughton Institute

2009-10-25T07:24:00.001-07:00

Last night we played the Aughton Institute. With Bob we were back to a trio for the night.

And what a great night it was too. The organiser had started out by apologising that the audience would be smaller than normal because of half term, but there were plenty of folks there and we had a great night, with a few request, a full dance floor and a return invitation for 13 March next year!

So any of you in that area know where to find us next year!

Farewell to a Young Friend

2009-10-25T07:23:00.001-07:00

We said goodbye to a young friend yesterday. Christian was only 24 and had been severely disabled all of his life. Unable to talk, to move independantly or even to eat easily because of a problem with swallowing, yet with a huge IQ that made his problems so much more a frustration.

His gift was in showing people how much reserve they had, how much patience and fortitude and capacity for love.

We got to know Christian and his sister Hollie, who suffers from the same syndrome a few years ago when we were asked to play a garden party for their birthday celebrations. We have played several such parties and have got to know many in the family. Indeed, we were always treated as family, rather than as paid entertainers and it has been a pleasure and privilege to go and entertain them at those events.

It introduced us to such things as wheelchair dancing, as Hollie and Christian have many friends from schools and care centres who are less fortunate than the majority of us.

We were immensely touched to be asked to sing at Christian's funeral and we found the service very moving. Christian's parents are two of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet and our thoughts were and are with them and the rest of the family last week and onwards.

Rest In Peace, Christian

Happy Birthday Jeannie!

2009-10-18T11:12:00.001-07:00

Last night was Jeannie's 60th Birthday Party. The band played (with Bob on stage with us). Fran did the catering - and picked up so many compliments for the wonderful buffet spread she put on.

It was a very busy and very full day but all the effort over the past few weeks came together to good effect and it was a brilliant night that seemed over almost as soon as we started! Jeannie's birthday is during the coming week, but we chose the weekend for the party to ensure as many people could come as possible - mainly me I think at the moment!

There's a few more celebratory events to come this week. Jeannie and Fran are going off for the day on Tuesday for an all-day pampering at a local beauty salon. David and I were turned down as the staff said they had to have a fighting chance... Couldn't understand that...

Then at the end of the week we're taking a couple of days off work to have a meal and perhaps fit in a trip out somewhere. On Saturday the band have a club date in Ormskirk.

Today we have been unloading the cars - last night we were so knackered that we left everything in the car. Although Fran just wanted one bag out of the back seat. This was so crowded I opened the door very carefully as it was around 1:30 in the morning. Unfortunately whilst I caught the bag that wanted to fall out, it didn't much matter as it was upside down... A large Quality Street tin, which had cup cakes or something in it, fell out with the loudest crash I've ever heard and trundled off down the once-silent street! Sorry neighbours...

Introducing the Duo

2009-10-11T01:42:00.000-07:00

Well it's now official that Bob will be leaving the band to concentrate on his work with The Old School Band.

David and I wish him every success in the ceilidh band which has become extremely successful and in demand for parties, making it difficult for him to perform with us on Saturday nights!

However David and I are well used to performing as a duo and that is how we are going to continue for the forseeable future. We have a few club bookings coming in and bookings for 2010 are looking as though it will be a good year again for us.

We'll be travelling about a bit too - February sees us up in the Lake District performing for a wedding reception and March sees us back in Northampton at the big Billy Fury gig of the year - Sunnyside. But we hope to see our regulars at the usual regular bookings at Myerscough, Witton Park, Garstang, Heskin Hall, Larbreck etc.

A return to Highfield Road is on the cards too, as apparently club members have been asking when we were to be booked again. Given that David had flu that night (and gave it me too, grrr...) we can't have been too bad! Also clubs in Eccleston and Ormskirk are in the calendar.

The new album will be completed as a duo - it's been a long time coming, but I've released a few tracks from it now - in the left hand column you can download The Gambler, Have You Ever Seen The Rain, Be My Baby, King For Tonight, Forever Autumn and 24 Hours From Tulsa.

The album will be a full hour of music and, of course, I'll let you know when it is available.

Garstang Arts & Music Festival

2009-08-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

Today we have been playing at the Garstang Arts & Music Festival, in our usual spot by the Discovery Centre.

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 the same spot by the car park entrance on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon around 12:30pm through until 4:00pm.

And it feels very nice to have a photo and 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 so with any luck it will do the same again on Monday!

Walking Festival at Blackburn

2009-07-19T05:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were playing at Witton Park in Blackburn at their Walking Festival.

We had a steady stream of folk coming to see us and stay for a while and the weather wasn't so unkind that anyone needed to dash for cover.

The Mayor and Mayoress came for a word, the Mayor showing great interest in the keyboard.

Thanks to all those who came to support us and the event!

Special Edition Album

2009-07-12T03:09:00.000-07:00

I've had this in mind for quite a while.

There were a couple of tracks on the very first album we produced that didn't sound quite right. They were recorded way back in 2002 and I hadn't then brought the keyboards into the band and so the tracks had no drums or keyboard sounds at all.

By the standards we reached even on the other tracks of that first album they were a bit raw and so David and I had a crack at re-recording them last night and will use them to produce a Special Edition of the first album Keeping On... which will be the one on offer from now onwards.

The tracks were the two Creedence Clearwater Revival tracks and you can download for a listen below.

Bad Moon Rising

Proud Mary

Happy 21st Birthday!

2009-06-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

Today we played for a 21st Birthday Party out to the north of Preston. We've played this one a few times now - not always for a 21st of course, but we did the young lady's 18th and her brother's 21st and this year was her turn to be the magical 21.

The garden party started in fine form with brilliant sunshine as you can see.

By the time the champagne cork popped and smacked David in the face - were they trying to tell him something - anyway, two and a half hours of his singing had not done much for the weather, as can be seen here as he poses with the wayward champagne cork.

Not long after this, thunder rumbled and then the heavens opened and stayed open and we had to quickly drag everything back into the tent/gazebo. The rain wasn't going anywhere though and we had to dismantle and start to dry everything out.

At least we had managed to do a brand new version of Bridge Over Troubled Water for the party girl's gran - as promised a couple of years ago!

Corporate Event Gig

2009-06-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

Last night we played for the JISC Regional Support Centre (RSC) Northwest annual conference at Southport Theatre and Convention Centre after I had been involved in the event with my work hat on!

A few people were wondering what to expect and some were possibly a bit gobsmacked but lots of nice comments folks so thanks for that!

A birthday party on Sunday will make the 3rd gig in 8 days!

Large version of photos: creeping bentgrass

Charity Birthday Gig

2009-06-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

Saturday was John's mum's 75th birthday. Ex-boxer Brian London's 75th birthday too so he told us that morning as we met up to have breakfast in our favourite cafe in Blackpool. But it was for Evelyne Burke's party that we played as part of an annual charity event.

Ever since husband Allan died five years ago, Evelyne has organised a charity bash at the caravan park where she lives in aid of Cancer Research. Over the years she has raised somewhere around £3000 at those events.

The afternoon is devoted to raffles, tombola, name the doll, the whisky wall and a bring and buy.

In the evening the band has played. Outside if the weather is fine and in a large barn if it's cold or threatens rain.

This weekend we were in the barn and David and I gave the residents and holiday makers 3 and a half hours of country, folk, sixties and rock and roll. We started with Don Williams' Gypsy Woman and ended with everyone in a circle singing You'll Never Walk Alone with a whole host of stuff along the way, including a first airing (without even a rehearsal) of Billy Fury's Maybe Tomorrow as part of a five-song tribute to Billy's memory.

Large versions of the photos: Evelyne, John and David

Myerscough College Open Day

2009-06-07T12:43:00.001-07:00

Eeh... it's been a busy weekend!

Today we've been playing at Myerscough College's open day - from 10:30am right through to 4:00pm with only a short break. The ends of my fingers on my left hand are a bit raw - and then I sliced my index finger on a string too. A bit sore!

Altogether in the past 24 hours we've played for 8.5 of them!!!

A few problems today when the sun came out (although I'm glad it did!) as the LCD screen of my keyboard just disappears in bright sunshine.

Thanks to all the folks who stayed to listen and to all who bought CDs and who came to talk to us - even the guy who started talking to David halfway through a song... what are people like??? Ha ha ha!

Two weeks now for my fingers to re-grow before our next gig that three in a week! Sheesh... gluttons for punishment!

Large versions of the photos: one, two

Steam Fair Gig at Heskin Hall

2009-06-06T23:58:00.000-07:00

Last night we did the Steam Fair at Heskin Hall, Chorley - our 5th year at this event.

This year Jack, the organiser, had wanted to try something a bit different to keep people on the grounds longer and we started playing around 5:30pm, finishing at 8:00pm to be followed by another band.

With another gig today at Myerscough College's Open Day this fitted well with us as we were home by 11:00pm instead of the usual 2:00am and have to be onsite at Myerscough before 9:00am this morning!

But bright-eyed and bushy-tailed of course with only a slightly sore throat - I think I've been swallowing my tonsils all night from the feel of it!

Oh yes, for all you steam fans out there, here's Little Dorothy. A picture of Big Dorothy some other day for all you fans of big dorothy's...

Witton Country Park Gig

2009-05-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

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!

Rehearsal Time

2009-04-20T10:21:00.001-07:00

I know...! Us?!? Rehearse?!? But once again we found ourselves trying out new stuff.

Last week we finally got round to going out for a "band meal", that is all three band members with wives. We had a wonderful meal at the Italian Orchard in Broughton, near the M6 motorway bridge on the Longridge Road and whilst we were merrily ruminating (or whatever we were doing) Bob suggested we ought to do The Hollies number Just One Look.

So on Saturday I got the keyboard out and had a listen to the original and dashed off a backing onto the keyboard. Dashed a bit too quick actually as I left a verse out... darn it! But it wasn't all a waste as I'd also had a go at another great hit from the same group, I'm Alive and that proved an instant hit with the other guys once David discovered he really could sing that low!

We'll be trying it out in a few weeks at our annual spot in the courtyard at Blackburn's Witton Park (see column at left for full details of public gigs).

Album Number Four

2009-04-05T01:25:00.001-07:00

David and Jeannie were round yesterday and we did a bit more work on the band's fourth album somewhat creatively given the working title Four.

It's going faster than we've ever got on with an album before but that may be because we have added so much new material to the repertoire since the last album that we have a huge amount of stuff competing for space. That's a mix of the new stuff competing with older songs we don't play as often these days.

Anyway, though most of the 16 tracks recorded so far are waiting for a bassline to be recorded, there is one that we recorded for the Billy Fury site and I added a bassline from the keyboard. King For Tonight was the B side to Last Night Was Made For Love which appeared on the third album, Right On The Line.

Yesterday we added a couple of tracks: Wild Mountain Thyme and Living Next Door To Alice (without swearing...)

Listen to: King For Tonight, Last Night Was Made For Love

Sunnyside - The Event!

2009-03-23T02:31:00.000-07:00

What a FABULOUS weekend!!! The Billy Fury weekend went in a blaze of meetings, hugs, laughs, highs and great, great music!

We went down to an Innkeeper's Lodge hotel in Northampton that was more-or-less just filled with Billy fans including the wonderful Moya, a close personal friend of Billy's who had come all the way from her adopted home in New Zealand. Moya's a pint-sized person with a tanker-sized personality and was such a lot of fun!

Friday afternoon we played a set in the meeting room of the hotel to a small but enthusiastic audience and then Friday night was the first main gig - an informal gathering in a packed room with many of the great artists who have sung on the Sounds Special monthly feature on Billy Fury web site. We met up with all the artists and the other regulars from the site's forum and it was a great night with music from (in totally random order)Rob Dee, Bruce Seaton, Johnny Storme, Jewel, Dean Hubert, Angus, Steve Sinclair, Jane, Pat James, Paul Staines, Snowy, Phil Jennings plus David and myself.

Paul and Johnny, dubbed The Fury Boys by the female members of the forum, (The Fury Girls...) did a fantastic duet together and set hearts fluttering all round the room judging by the reactions!

Then it was the turn of The Fury Girls themselves at the end of the night to gather to sing Fans of Billy Fury to the tune of Land of Hope & Glory, whilst I desperately tried to keep up accompaniment on the keyboards! We ended with all the singers up for a rousing rendition of Billy's most famous hit Halfway To Paradise.

After such a great night there wasn't much chance of sleep until we had wound down a bit and a bottle of wine in the room with David and Jeannie brought the night to a close and David and Jeannie went back to their own room and we collapsed like a light switched off.

Saturday was the main event at the Sunnyside club where Billy had given his last stage performance. The singers were joined by Jett Scream, Geoff Howlett and Andrew Tween.

Out of 14 acts we were chuffed to find ourselves only 4th from the top of the bill, which was topped by Billy's ex-flatmate Vince Eager with his band Rockola.

With three hours of music before we were due to go on, there was plenty of time for a few butterflies in the stomach and I was unbelievably nervous as the MC, disc jockey Pierre Petrou from London's Radio Northwick Park introduced us. But the roar that followed us as we walked onto the stage banished the nerves and I quickly made sure the guitar was still in tune and then promptly cocked up the intro to I'm a Believer! Not to worry, we gave what seemed like a good set of six songs and we hadn't gone all that far before the floor filled with dancers which is always a good sign!

Lots of people made very kind comments afterwards but we found it quite strange and having spoken to some of the other singers we knew we weren't alone. You grow into a gig and we felt that we had only just got going and then our 6 songs were up and we had to come off. But enough people said how much they had enjoyed it to make up for any regrets about only having a 20 minute slot and the whole night was a buzz with some really great acts!

I was grabbed to dance with Babs and then Jean and Marie and then once more all the singers joined Vince on stage to sing "HTP" and a really great night ended on a high.

We left on Sunday morning after doing a final round of goodbyes and reflected on lots of new friends made and meetings with people from the forum who I've felt I've known for so long. The proudest moment? Probably when someone from one of the two fan clubs came to say how much he had enjoyed my arrangement of Billy's King For Tonight which he described as "rocked up"!

Unfortunately Fran's camera died but David (the Click-Monster) took loads of photos of the other artists so I'll borrow them to add to my memories of a BILLYANT night!

Northampton Weekend

2009-03-20T02:41:00.000-07:00

We're just getting ready to load the car with keyboards and guitars and head off down to Northampton for this event.

If you haven't got tickets already there's now no chance of getting any I'm afraid (for "afraid" read "glad to say"!) The event is sold out and the Sunnyside club it was reported had to turn down another 50 applications for tickets the day after it sold out!

Tonight is a chance to meet all the great people from the http://www.billyfury.com forums and I'm anticipating a great night tonight also!

Reports to come...!

Setting Up

2009-03-02T00:27:00.001-08:00

Went out for a Chinese last night with David and Jeannie and they gave me some photos of the last gig which included some rare set-up shots.

We don't often get photos of all the work involved in setting up the stage, arranging cables into a loom so we don't trip up and tuning instruments and so on, so I thought I'd include a few here. Looks like I'm doing most of the work too! Sigh...

We are looking forward immensely to the Billy Fury gig in Northampton in 3 weeks. We are sharing the stage with lots of other artists but hope to do a set of 6 songs at the Sunnyside Club, the last venue Billy played. Saturday 20 March.

First Gig for 2009

2009-02-01T05:03:00.000-08:00

Last night the band gave a performance to an invited audience of some 80 friends and family members at Staining Village Hall.

It was great to see so many people there, especially as some of them we don't see all that often. Old school friends had come from the Rochdale area, some family had come from the Chester area and Fran's brother and his wife drove up from Swindon to spend the night with us.

There were, of course lots of friends, family and colleagues from Blackpool, Cleveleys and Garstang to swell the numbers.

It was only the second time we had arranged a season-starter for ourselevs and this time any excess funds will be going to Cat Rescue (Blackpool, Wyre & Fylde.

Each member of the band shares their house with 2 cats and so it's a charity close to our hearts.

We had fun with some of Fran's friends last night who were calling for some Abba songs. Abba don't normally feature strongly in our act, though John did his best and included a snatch of Waterloo in the keyboard instrumental in the middle of Hi Ho Silver Lining!

Large versions of the photos: view from the hall, close view

Christmas Music

2008-12-25T01:19:00.001-08:00

Happy Christmas everybody from David, John and Bob.

Three Christmas songs from the band for you to enjoy.

Good King Wencelas
A Winters Tale
I Believe In Father Christmas

Large version of the photo: Christmas store

Christmas Performance

2008-12-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday we were invited to perform for a staff party and turned up early to set up whilst the party-goers were enjoying a festive meal.

We were provided with our very own buffet and what an excellent start to the session that was for us. The food was excellent and given that the kitchen staff were serving up a couple of hundred full Christmas dinners, was a tribute to them. Wonderful!

The staff came back from the meal and we started off with a new instrumental by Bob and myself; Foot Tapper. Then on came David and we played a few country songs, a couple of Irish charmers and then launched into the dancy numbers.

Lots of compliments, lots of dancing and even a couple of guest singers! Christmas has started - bring it on!

Large version of the photo: creeping bentgrass

John and David Clubbing

2008-11-21T00:20:00.000-08:00

Last night we played the Highfield Road Servicemens' Association club in Blackpool.

Poor David has been suffering since the Saturday gig with flu and looked as though he should have been still in bed really but we gave them a good night and a chance to exercise their vocal chords singing along to country, folk and sixties songs, finishing up with Quo's Rocking All Over The World.

David explained he looked a bit rough due to being on heavy drugs (Lemsip) and the audience gave us a rousing burst of applause at every song ending and afterwards as Fran was standing by the pile of equipment we were ferrying to the car across the road many of them could be heard saying how much they had enjoyed the night.

So did we...Even David was back to his usual self after a few songs and the adrenalin had shaken off the flu for a while!

Claughton Gig

2008-11-16T03:49:00.000-08:00

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...!

American Gig

2008-09-09T00:15:00.001-07:00

Well... in truth a "Gig for Americans" might be more accurate!

Myerscough College have had a group of students from Ohio State University on an exchange visit and asked if we could play at a bar-b-que last Thursday night.

The weather held off at least as far as rain goes, but I think the visitors were finding our summer a little more akin to their winters! They joined in with the singing and introduced us to their style of rousing cheer, which started with a handclap getting faster and faster and ending in a yell!

They were up for a bit of singing too and it was an excellent night for us!

Garstang Music and Arts Festival

2008-08-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

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!

Darwen Outing

2008-08-04T10:54:00.001-07:00

Yesterday saw us out in Darwen, playing for a charity event in aid of cancer research at the home of our special friends, Christine and Brian.

It's a large garden and we had a gazebo in one corner just in case but the rain was good to us and stayed away whilst we played throughout the afternoon and into the evening.

A slight technical mishap - we'd taken our smaller PA system and then blew one of the speakers... A touch of repair work needed I think! Anyway the remaining speaker was made of hardier stuff and performed well for the rest of the gig!

And I gather whilst we were out and working, we had a track played on London's Radio Northwick Park - thank you to DJ Pierre Petrou and our friends at http://www.billyfury.com!

The track at the Billy Fury site this month is one of John's solo efforts - Tracks of My Tears.

School Prom

2008-07-22T22:35:00.001-07:00

Monday night saw David and John playing at a junior school prom.

I think that an apt description of the audience would be "wildly enthusiastic"! In fact so loud we could hardly hear the music ourselves. We'd had to turn the speakers away to avoid feedback, it was cranked up louder than we'd ever had it before just to cut above the noise from the kids.

They weren't particularly running wild or anything, they were singing along, cheering, in fact giving us an amazing reception. Thank you to the kids and teachers at Blackpool's St John Vianney. We finished off an exuberant night with the Blackpool Football Team's anthem - the old Dave Clark Five hit, Glad All Over and I think everyone was!

As David said afterwards, "I can cope with 11,000 coming through the gate at Liverpool but that was scary!!!" An excellent night!

Croxteth 2008

2008-07-13T23:51:00.001-07:00

A scorching day yesterday at Croxteth Park, Liverpool, where we played for the sixth year running for the Open Day.

No fairground this time so we had less competition from other attractions and consequently had a good-sized audience in front of us for the day. They were good-natured and enthusiastic and we hope you all had as good a day listening as we had playing for you!

We have had confirmation now that we will be playing again at Garstang's Festival on Thursday 21 August - our usual spot near the car park and council offices on the corner of the main street.

Creeping Bentgrass Coming To Croxteth Park

2008-07-01T06:40:00.001-07:00

We had thought this gig might be called off this year but we can confirm that it will be going ahead!

Sunday July 13 2008

We'll be on our usual spot to the side of the hall on the green. Come and say hello. We'll be there from around 11:30 all the way through to 4:00pm.

See you there!!!

Larbreck Hall

2008-06-22T03:41:00.000-07:00

Great gig last night for David and John out at Larbreck Hall Caravan Park. Bob was unavailable so we performed as a duo.

We were going to do an outdoor, but the weather was appalling. The organisers had sorted out an old barn and built a stage with scaffolding, pallets stacked and carpeted over and a backdrop and sides of sheet plastic - pretty good too for such a temporary set-up!

The pallets were very springy though - when we started foot tapping and getting into the faster stuff I thought I was going to be catapulted off stage a couple of times but we survived and dragged Jeannie up to sing backing vocals for The Ronette's song Be My Baby.

Thanks to the holiday makers and residents at the caravan park for such a great reception and your enthusiasm! Thanks too to the very enthusiastic group of girls who screamed and shouted and kept demanding Bob The Builder for some strange reason! John managed to work it into his keyboard solo on Ho Ho Silver Lining - that has to be a world's first...!

A Wet Day at Myerscough

2008-06-02T01:35:00.001-07:00

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...

Wedding Gig

2008-05-25T02:03:00.001-07:00

Last night we were out in the beautiful countryside of the Trough of Bowland, playing at the wedding of Lee and Gail in Oakenclough.

We were glad of the SatNav as it would have been a job to find it otherwise! We were playing in a couple of marquees put together in the grounds of a country hotel.

"It'll be in tents tonight..." said David as we glimpsed them from the car. ("intense" - puns don't always work written down...) Then he said it again as we sat in the bar waiting for the speeches to finish. Oh yes, and again over the mic later on. Likes to get his money's worth out of a pun, does David! Ha! "That's what I like about you, John..." he'll say after reading this, "...nothing!"

It was a breezy night - apparently the marquee had had to be re-erected that morning after it blew down the previous night and it was certainly getting up a bit as we say up north! (note to southerners - we don't say oop for up in the northwest!)

We played for a couple of hours, filling the dance floor, then handed over to a disco. Then - disaster - the disco had technical problems. Their amp blew and we had to set back up after having almost broken down completely and we gave them another hour and a half whilst the DJ drove back home to bring another amp. Our amp didn't have enough phono inputs as we use standard jack plugs for everything except the mics.

We were wearing matching white t-shirts with suits instead of our usual black shirts and I thought it looked quite professional too! Anyway the bride, groom and guests were very complimentary about the band's performance and our willingness to step in after the DJs' technical problems. Poor couple, it's every performer's worst nightmare!

Sound Files Working Again

2008-05-17T06:01:00.001-07:00

I've now transferred the sound files to http://fileave.com and they should be working again.

Click the song name under the "Listen - Music Tracks" heading in the left hand column.

Media Files Unavailable

2008-05-17T03:53:00.001-07:00

Sorry to anyone who has been trying to listen to the media files. Mediamax, the website that was hosting them has decided to "upgrade" to something called "The Link Up" and has spectacularly downgraded instead.

I only had a free account and they have decided that anyone with a free account doesn't have their files moved to the new site at all. A disadvantage over paid accounts, but only the very slightest of disadvantages as all the (ignored) screams on the blog of the site seem to suggest that the paid customers' files haven't been moved either...

They are not going to allow seamless linking either so I'm on the lookout for somewhere else to store the files. If anyone has any experience or knowledge (I'm against spending money for this because of the relative unreliability of such services) then I'd be pleased to hear from you!

John

Witton Park Gig

2008-05-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

We played a gig at Witton Park, Blackburn on Sunday, setting up in our usual spot in the courtyard which was set out with straw bales for the audience to sit. Quite a number turned up. It was a nice day (until later - see below) and we ran out of straw bales but thankfully not out of songs!

There was a lot going on besides us. There was some chap dressed up in a duck outfit collecting entries for a duck race. I couldn't resist the temptation and called to him over the mic - "Collect a bit for charity, there's a duck..."!

Throughout the morning and into the afternoon it was so sunny I couldn't read the LCD display on the keyboard which led to this rather unfortunate necessity...

From lunchtime, though, we kept hearing thunder rumbling in the far distance, although it remained warm and sunny through the afternoon. Then as we were considering calling it a day and just as we were halfway through the last chorus huge raindrops started to fall. We finished, yelled "Thank you, goodbye!" and yanked plugs from sockets and dragged the equipment into the shelter of the ex-stable that we use as a base.

Almost immediately the Heavens opened and thunder, lightning and hailstones the size of marrowfats were bouncing all over the place.

A great day with none of the usual requests for "just one more", as the audience dived for cover too!

First Gig with New Keyboard

2008-03-18T01:17:00.001-07:00

We played a charity gig in aid of Sports Relief last night at Bispham Conservative Club arranged by the ladies from Sainsburys store next door. They raised over two thousand pounds for the charity altogether so a tremendous effort.

We did a couple of spots, starting and finishing the evening and there was a performance by Britain's Got Talent contestant Tom McLeod.

The new keyboard sounded good, but I'm still not totally familiar with it yet and there was a moment's panic when I couldn't find an entire folder of rock and roll songs. It took a while before I realised there were too many folders to show on one page and there was a page 2 button lit up! Duh!

Anyway we got everyone up dancing, which we were told was a most unusual feat!

Carrying all the gear down a very steep fire escape in the dark was a bit hairy!

Trials and Tribulations

2008-03-03T23:35:00.000-08:00

We've gained a new backing singer!

David's wife Jeannie joins us for a bit of help on the chorus of Be My Baby. Which is a good thing because my falsetto is not was it used to be...

We were round at John's house last night for another run through of the new stuff and to see if we can revive a couple of numbers that have fallen by the wayside a bit. A good time was had by all, helped by Fran's cubed chicken in white wine and garlic which was just a bit yummy!

At the same time though we've had a gig called off this weekend so are going to console ourselves with a trip out to Frankie & Bennie's!

March Track at Billy Fury Website

2008-03-02T00:12:00.000-08:00

This month at http://www.billyfury.com you can listen to one of the tracks from our new album Right On The Line.

The track is called I Try To Think About Elvis and features John on vocals.

The website is devoted to 1960s British idol Billy Fury whose latest album is currently in the album charts 25 years after his untimely death from long-standing health problems.

Rehearse? What's That About?

2008-02-18T00:08:00.000-08:00

With another year of gigs about to start at the beginning of March, we decided we had better get together for a bit of a rehearsal.

After all, the last time we all played together was 24 September last year!

We don't do a great deal of rehearsing to be honest - after 6 years together we just fall into it again, but with it having been so long we just wanted to have a bit of a run-through.

In addition I'd put together some new songs on the keyboard and we had our first play of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire, Kenny Rogers' The Gambler, Creedence Clearwater Revival's Have You Ever Seen The Rain, Status Quo's Rockin' All Over The World and one I stuck in as an experiment but it sounded great - er... The Ronettes' Be My Baby!

"Well I thought you wouldn't be able to surprise me any more," David said, "but..."

Christmas Song Downloads

2007-12-25T01:39:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to all our friends and followers.

We hope to see you soon and wish you all a happy and prosperous 2008!

We recorded these two songs for the Christmas edition of Sounds Special on the Billy Fury website.

We hope you enjoy them!

A Winter's Tale
I Believe In Father Christmas

Right On The Line

2007-12-11T13:40:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time coming!

Our new album, Right On The Line is finally ready, the covers are back from the printers and I've started production.

The album has 16 tracks and as a nod to our friends at the Billy Fury website, it has two of Billy's tracks: Last Night Was Made For Love and Somebody Else's Girl.

You can have a free listen to Last Night Was Made For Love. Call it our thanks for being so patient, we hope you enjoy the album.