Newcastle

Next stop the Marriott Hotel in Newcastle - a private function for a department of the NHS who source and arrange cars for medical staff throughout the country. It’s a scheme where people sacrifice some of their salary and then can buy a car from many of the popular makes. It doesn’t cost the health service anything, and appears to be a genuine benefit for district nurses, doctors and other who need a reliable but affordable car. The party was sponsored by the car dealers and had a Tropical Theme. All the guests dressed up in bright shirts (not as bright as ours, but close!). Big LED screen on one wall showing a tropical beach. Really nice themed event - and we were the surprise. They had a great local band - The Fontains, a really good three piece who played modern covers, who are well known in the area - but we were to be the ‘themed’ music part. There was even a Steel Band who played as the guests arrived. In the foyer a mini-bus converted into a photo booth was busy all evening. The audience had just finished their meal, so we really weren’t expecting them to get up and dance - but they did, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people dancing and having a good time. By the end of the evening, many were clearly full, but we spent ages having photos taken with them. A great night.

Packed away and back to the posh van with comfy seats we’d hired to get us to Newcastle. Tapped in the postcode of our hotel, only to discover our lack of knowledge of the area hadn’t spotted the small problem. It was 100 miles away! Driving down the A1 we also discovered the diversion off the A1. However - whoever set it up made a fatal flaw, it took us off the A1, sent us miles out of our why to re-enter the A1 again - only to discover we’d gone in a circle and came up to the diversion again! In the end we did what British people do - we asked a Policeman, who said he had no idea, but if we went ‘that way’ we’d get somewhere - eventually we arrived at the hotel at 3.30 in the morning. I climbed into bed, and Ian made a cup of coffee and turned on the TV. It didn’t matter - I was gone! We got home at six PM - so that’s 34 hours away from home, and we were on stage for 75 minutes? What a strange life!

Next show is almost on our doorstep - North Norfolk!

A show almost on the doorstep - well, almost. Trimmingham, up near Cromer. A holiday centre in the middle of woodland. Lots of log cabins. Being Norfolk, the Sat Nav was a bit optimistic - In Norfolk, if the Sat Nav says 60 mins, then the usual settings of 'quickest' or 'shortest' mean very little. Our A roads are what the rest of the country call B roads, and our B roads are single file, with little passing places - and to get to Trimmingham is a bit of an adventure, when you meet a Tesco's lorry coming the other way on a blind bend! 

Anyway, the powers that be allow us to park near the rear entry to the stage, so in we go with the kit. It's Mike, our soundman's last show, as he's decided that being an estate agent is what he wants to do. Very oddly, and entirely coincidentally, his boss is Simon - the UK Beach Boys original drummer. We have a great night - once we've spent some time in the rather nice restaurant. Not enough time to play all the songs we wanted to, but we picked as many of the 'dancy' ones that we could, so we did miss some of the slower ones that I personally really like. The audience of course prefer the faster ones. A number of our songs are medleys - because back in the '60s, records only lasted two and a half minutes or so - so almost as soon as you've started, they're done. To solve this problem, we've put together a couple of medleys where we link them together - one is the 'Car medley' featuring songs about cars, and the other with the surfing songs. Very often the organisers have very strict curfews, so going over the expected end time is pretty bad, so we have a system where the surf medley can be three songs or five = depending on what time we have left. The signal for this is Ian waving his hand. Three fingers for three songs, five for five. We don't do two! anyway - we finish the song before the Surf Medley, and out of the corner I see Ian holding up his hand - it was five, I think. I ask Ben quickly - "was that Five?" - yes he says. One, two, three four - twang. Ian and Dacre start the third song, Ben and I start  the first. We excelled ourselves and took just two notes to realise and swap - not bad we thought! Thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and I hope we'll be back. One of the snags with our band is that we're physically quite big. Ideally, we really need at least 6 or 7 metres in width, and 5 deep. Lots of our kit, like the amplifiers and racks are big things, so trying to squeeze us into smaller performing areas can be very tricky.

Ian arranged our next show as a fundraiser for a small village community centre, which we knew was going to be small, but it was for a good cause, so we figured it worth squashing us in for. Stokesby Village has a population of around 300 people, and is on the Norfolk Broads, so packing a third of them into the tiny village hall was a real challenge - but the organisers did it. Tickets were pretty expensive, but in the end they simply sold them top the village - none going outside at all. From the moment we got there it was very odd - because everyone knew everyone else - a great example of community spirit. This was two shows close to home - which was a record. As the teetotal band member, I always seem to get odd flavours of non-alcoholic drinks because I don't think they expect somebody in a band to not drink. Endless cherryade in this example. Not had that since I was a kid. This show was also special for another reason. This was our first gig since losing Mike, and we were struggling to find a replacement who understood the music. We had a volunteer - Pete Phipps - the old UK Beach Boys bass player, who I replaced. He sat out in the audience and made a decent job of the mix, because he knew the entire set so well. He also realised that this was the first time he'd ever heard the band from where the audience was. Hopefully, Pete will be able to do more of our shows. 

Next show is a long way again. Pickering, in North Yorkshire, up near Scarborough.

However - it looks like we're going even further. Hopefully, we'll be in Abu Dhabi in November for the Formula 1 Grand Prix, and then off to Berlin. 

More on these soon ............