Club Christmas Date for Creeping Bentgrass

Saturday 8 December saw us out at Fleetwood Cricket Club playing for a Christmas event for a local classic car club. They were joined for the event by members of the Lancashire Morris Minors Club and a good night was had by all!

Creeping Bentgrass Christmassy Car Club Concert!

Thursday 14 December 2017. All awash with alliteration, no... that's it. I'm not going to be able to keep that up... Thursday night saw us battling torrential rain and hail in Fleetwood as we set up in the Cricket Club to perform at the Christmas Party of a local Classics Car Club.

We have played for this club several times in the past and strangely, whenever prizes for the best car are handed out, the judges have always managed to overlook my Mazda... However, no prizes tonight as the order of the day is to celebrate Christmas and have a party!

I'm trying out my new American Professional Fender Stratocaster for the first time at a gig tonight and it sounds lovely and is a perfect match for the old faithful cherry red guitar.

A surprise visit from Father and Mrs Christmas and... surely that's not a reindeer...!

Creeping Guys With Guitars

In the past we have played a few gigs for a local car club so it was nice to get a call from their secretary the other week. 'We are having a meeting and social on Thursday 8 June,' she said 'and we asked the members what entertainment they wanted. They said "those two Creeping guys with guitars!"...'

Isn't it nice to be remembered! Ha ha! But of course, we don't take ourselves too seriously so we were only too pleased to go and play for their event. They have quite a few new members also since we last played for them so they were all seeing us for the first time and we got some great feedback. 'Your voices are great!' came one comment. 'It's quite rare for someone's voice to be so strong after 40...' Well, we'll let you know whether our voices change once we get there...

It was our first time playing at Fleetwood Cricket Club too - a nice venue with easy access and no stairs - that's what I like! I still have nightmares at the memory of having to carry our previous huge and heavy speakers down an unlit fire escape iron staircase one dark night because the club didn't want us on their front stairs. It was throwing it down with rain and the steps were very steep and slippery. We will not be playing there again!

But this night was not just about music - there were cars to be looked at and judged (thankfully by someone who knows more about them than I do...) This Morris Minor Traveller won the first prize, winning a hefty silver cup to be kept for a year by its owner.

I quite liked this Ford Consul Classic - the first UK car to have twin headlights if I'm not mistaken. I nearly bought one once for £60 when I was 17, but it was just that bit too expensive and I bought a Hillman Minx for £40 instead!

Car Club Gig in Blackpool

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

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

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

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

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

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

And one to match the scratch plate!

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

Poulton Gig for Car Club

Saturday 8 December saw us out at Poulton Golf Club to play for the Christmas "do" of a local car club.

It was a superb night, the audience were cracking jokes with us and we got a lot of good feedback at the end of the night and afterwards. Miss Jeannie reached down to the bottom of the costume box to find the old Mexican sombreros we used to wear when playing "Dance the Night Away". So they made a reappearance!

Another surprise was bumping into an old friend from school! Janet Astley was one of the bunch of close friends from sixth form days. There was even a song or two she remembered from the old days when I was in a band called "Anacreon" and before that in the rather less nattily named "Heywood Senior High School Folk Group"...

David took this one of Jan and I behind Miss Franny and Miss Jeannie before we started playing. ...er... that is before the band started playing... Just so there's no confusion...!