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!"

Charnock Richard Charity Gig

Last night we were out at Charnock Richard Football Club to play at a charity night. What a brilliant night it was too, lots of people all round the room singing along with us. I unveiled my new solo song as a nod to Sheridan Smith's fantastic performance as Cilla Black in the recent TV 3-part bio - Cilla's You're My World. It certainly got a good reception - David might not let me sing it again...!

A cheque for £2000 was presented to Lancashire Air Ambulance from the Heskin Hall Steam Fair back in June and there was a huge raffle and the auctioning of a beautiful hand-made wooden old-fashioned lorry loaded with barrels. And I do like a gig where we pick up a couple of bookings for the future!

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!

Weekend Gig Reports

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!

Heskin Hall Steam Fair 2010

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.

Steam Fair Gig at Heskin Hall

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...

A Wet Day at Myerscough

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...

Steam Fair for Rainbow House

Last night we played at Heskin Hall in Chorley for a Steam Fair in aid of the charity Rainbow House.

An excellent night despite the power pack for my guitar effects pedal packing up! I keep batteries in it so thankfully they just took over.

So now I have a spare pack of batteries for today but am hoping I don't need them as if I remove the batteries to change them I might lose all my settings which would be interesting! No chance of buying a replacement power pack before the gig as we have to be onsite by 9:00am!

Anyway, the marquee was packed last night and lots of folk came over to say how much they had enjoyed themselves. One chap came over to help sing Elvis's "The Wonder of You" - didn't make a bad job of it either!

Our next gig for the Steam Fair crowd is the first Saturday in August - glad you "reminded" us of it Jack, because we had the September one down but not that one!

Ok, we were in by 2:00am so it must be time now to get off to Myerscough College where we are appearing today from around 11:00am. Come and say hello and help keep us awake! Ageing rockers, eh? Any chance for a moment's rest and they're fast asleep...