Creeping Bentgrass Gigs in 2018

We've had a couple of gigs so far this year. The first I'm featuring here was in Garstang at the Banqueting Suite by the canal.

It was for a Golden Wedding celebration so we were wearing our gold sequinned ties for the occasion. We have gold, silver, ruby pink, blue and black versions of these ties, which means we can usually fit in sympathetically with different party events!

At this event a slide show of the happy couple was being projected over our heads onto a screen throughout the night!

Our second gig was in Chorley and we arrived to find both a scattering of snow and a flatteringly large advertising banner.

At the end of the night someone said "is that your white van outside?"
"No I have a black car," I said. When we got out though it was our white van... I had no gloves and clearing all the snow off left me with very red painful hands! Ah well... David got to take the poster home for his collection of CBG memorabilia!

10th Year at Heskin Hall Steam Fair

What a brilliant night last night! The best comments are those you overhear and early on in the night Fran heard someone say "Oh this is the band everyone's been raving about..."

Four and a half hours of non-stop joy followed with four or five encores. Tense beginning though, as it took me a while to get both speakers working on the PA - perhaps time for another major purchase grrr!

The dance floor filled up nicely and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. At the end someone said "We've been coming here for eight years and you just get better each year!"

Heskin Hall Steam Fair, 2014

Saturday night, Spring Bank Holiday weekend saw us driving out Chorley way to Heskin Hall where they had the big steam fair on over the weekend.

With a large number of steam traction engines, tractors, classic cars and much more this is a great day out for those with a machinery fetish, or just those who like to feel nostalgic about how things were just a few decades ago.

We were headed for the massive marquee - I'm sure this gets bigger every year... This would be the tenth year we have done this particular fair. It's been at Heskin Hall for eight years and the first two years were in a field not too far away.

Last year we had difficulties in making ourselves heard at the far end of the marquee without experiencing feedback problems, but this year the dance floor was set up in the middle of the marquee and we set up at the side of it and had a great night with no problems with the sound.

With ten years playing the same event there were lots of people waving to us as they came in during the evening and lots of new faces as well. Some great comments from members of the audience when we finally bowed ourselves off stage after an incredible four and a half hours solid performing!

Eighth Year at Heskin Hall for Creeping Bentgrass

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

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

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

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

Heskin Hall Steam Fair 2012

Last night saw us at the Heskin Hall Steam Fair once more - we've been playing this event every year since 2006 and it is always a brilliant night for us.

A huge marquee was our venue for the night - half again as big as in previous years and as we set up only a couple of tables had people sitting at them. I needn't have worried though because the place filled to capacity with a considerable number of people standing close to the bar area as well as the seating area.

We were kept busy. In fact we played an incredible four and a half hours, finishing with a version of House of the Rising Sun.

For some reason my guitar effects pedal was giving me palpitations - it cut out once or twice but seemed to come back ok after a vicious kick... Going to have to look at that and hope it behaves itself today!

This afternoon we are playing for the Diamond Jubilee Party at Scorton Village. The weather is a bit wet - it was raining last night as we carried the gear back to the car and from the state of the field had been for some time.

It's not let up since then so I think we're going to be in the Village Hall rather than on the field but we'll do our best to inject a bit of cheer!