Eccleston Steam Fair

Saturday 4 June 2016. We found ourselves driving down twisting country lanes somewhere to the west of Eccleston in Lancashire. The Heskin Hall Steam Fair that we had played for years has moved from this year and we were heading for a farmer's field out in the country.

The event looked bigger than ever and with our long-time collaborator, Jack Gerrard at the helm, we knew that the facilities would be top notch. The marquee is always the size of a small palace and with a dance floor and twinkling LED lights set in the draperies over the stage area, it looks the biz, particularly once it goes dark.

There's always been a good crowd in the marquee at this event and so it proved this year. Despite the new venue, we recognised lots of regular faces and we gained some great feedback and a couple of future gigs too!

I even got to play a couple of instrumentals too - that'll teach him to "lubricate his throat" so much...

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!

Fylde Vintage Weekend

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...

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!

Wharles the Heck Are We?

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...

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...

Old Gigs, New Pix

For most gigs Fran takes some photos on a digital whilst Jeannie takes photos on film.

I've just got round to scanning Jeannie's last photos and there's a couple of them here.

How about this for a tent?

This is the marquee hired for the steam fair gig which was in aid of the charity Rainbow House, on 3 June. (See the original report here)

We've done these gigs, two a year for the past 3 years now and they are always a good night.

The second pic is of me filling in with Shelagh and Peter Cooney, our guest artists at the Myerscough College Open Day, the following day.

We thought it may be as well to give ourselves a break from singing after a full night and, indeed, we had a late night combined with an early morning which meant that over one 20 hour period we had been playing for 10 hours!

Shelagh, you may remember, contributed the haunting harmonies and penny whistle on "Fields of Athenry" on our 2004 "Kites" album.

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...

Busy Month Ahead

The album may have to take a back seat during June as we go into overdrive, starting with a couple of gigs on the first weekend.

Saturday the 2nd sees us at Heskin Old Hall at a Steam Fair during the evening where we'll be playing in a marquee.

Sunday the 3rd will see us for our 6th consecutive year at the Myerscough Open Day at Myerscough College. The college is a land-based college - agriculture, horticulture, animal care, sports etc. so there will be plenty to see and do besides listening to us.