For the past couple of years we have been rained off our usual spot outdoors at the Garstang Arts & Music Festival, so this year the organisers are putting us indoors at the Wyrebank Banqueting Suite by the canal on the Friday night. It's a great venue that we have played several times before. There's a buffet included in the ticket price and there's a bar.
Last night we played at Larbreck Hall Caravan Park. Since 2004 when my Dad died we've done an annual night here, donating our fee to cancer research.
For all of those years until this year Mum, who has a resident van on the site, has arranged things. Last year she announced it was her last one and the site owners, Roland and Edith Armistead took over. Not that she slowed down all that much - she was there running stalls, managing a guess the number of buttons in a jar and (OMG...) having her hair dyed orange to gain sponsorship.
Around 80 people packed into the barn to see us last night and they seemed to have a good time! Overall over £700 was raised for charity with Mum's contribution being a hefty" £220. Ah well... it'll grow out in a few weeks I suppose...
As always, the people from the site had done a great job on the stage dressing and we unveiled a new song on the night - the Everly Brothers' So Sad.
Last night we played out at Treales for the Fylde Farm Weekend. As we turned onto the field and tried to spot the marquee we had to admit that it looked a lot larger show than in previous years.
As I walked past one of the food stalls, the owner calls out: "Creeping Bentgrass?" I nod and pause to chat. "You're one of my favourite bands!" he says. A good start to the night!
The stage area last year was laid on the grass, but this year we are on a raised platform. Although it still didn't have a curving staircase for us to make an entrance on...
Four and a half hours of non-stop music making later... What a brilliant night, thanks so much to the organisers and to all who came to listen, to sing along, to hand jive or get up to dance.
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...!
Sunday 9 June saw us at Myerscough College, performing at their Open Day for the twelfth year running.
We were both suffering a little from sore throats - we stayed away from the more raucous stuff until much later in the afternoon when we seemed to have powered through and all the symptoms disappeared!
The college has carried out a bit of building since last year and we were in a different place than usual, away from the stream of people walking to and from the car park. But people seemed to find us easily enough, including three ex-colleagues from 20 years ago when I worked at Preston College.
The sun was a bit fierce and I always forget that when playing a guitar the underside of my left arm is exposed. That was sore for a few days...
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!!!
Today we played at Witton Park in Blackburn. I think it would be true to say that the weather could have been kinder! But we managed to attract a good sized audience at least during the early afternoon before the rain really set in.
We had gone armed with some bin liners to put over the speakers and we managed to stay dry by playing from inside the entrance to one of the old stables around the courtyard.
And we had a bit of help when we took on the Take That song, The Flood!
On Friday we played at the Elgin Hotel, Blackpool for a luncheon gathering of ex British Gas staff.
This was the third time we have played for this group and they make a great audience and - so they tell us - we have increased the numbers of people attending since we started playing the after lunch spot.
Glad to be of service...
Large version of photo: available at my Flickr account
Friday 5 April 2013. We were booked to play at a surprise birthday party.
Surprise birthday parties can be a risky thing to accept bookings for as the last one we were booked to perform at was called off after the birthday boy - who knew nothing about it - booked a holiday instead! But here everything went according to plan.
We were at the Raikes Hotel in the centre of Blackpool - a nice change for us as although we live there, most of our gigs tend to be out of town! The birthday boy was a biker and there was a fine collection of tattoos in the room!
A great night all round!
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Saturday 23 March 2013. Friday was just a warm up, a chance for a bit of a jam session. Tonight we had a few more acts and a tight and fixed schedule.
Steve Reynolds got us going with a few numbers played with the distinctive Shadows sound - shudderingly good!
Tony Harte, lead singer with The Honeycombs gave us a great set including a blistering version of Friday on My Mind and of course the Honeycombs hit Have I The Right.
Dave Wilcox has appeared several times at Sunnyside events now and gets better every year.
Geoff Howlett had us crossing off a few songs from our playlist as he displayed an uncanny - or sinister - foreknowledge of our intended act!!! Hmmm.... We let him off as he played the Blackpool Football Club anthem Glad All Over!
Alan Wilcox (no relation to Dave Wilcox) is making a name for himself as a Billy Fury tribute artist. Billy's memory is assured for another generation!
Two old geezers took to the stage and did their best, bless them...
Apologies to all those who we didn't get photos of, but we'll finish with this shot of Michelle Gibson who brought a feminine touch to the proceedings with hits from Brenda Lee and Connie Francis amongst others. Apart from Shelagh joining us in our set to sing a three-part harmony version of The Rose, Michelle was the only female act of the night.
And then once all the acts were done and all the equipment had been cleared to make the room ready for a wedding fair the following morning, we retired to hold the now traditional post gig party with a bottle of bubbly and, thanks to Peter, a bottle of whisky! We were as quiet as we could...
Then goodbyes were said at breakfast the following morning and we loaded the car and headed home through a bit of a winter wonderland at least until we crossed over to the west side of the country.
