HALF TIME REPORT!

As we did last year, I thought I would give everyone an update on how the first night's Beer Festival festivities went - and that is after just returning from the Saturday lunchtime session - purely business obviously!

As reported elsewhere, we kicked the proceedings off last night and, although an 8:15pm start is pretty daunting, we were pleased to see there was a stiff, cold breeze blowing which meant that, although folks were tempted outside by the evening sunshine, they pretty soon cam back inside before their bits froze off! Bonus for us, because it meant we had an audience!


Being the "warm up" act is always tricky, because you want to do your best stuff, but have to recognise that the crowd needs time to get into the swing of things - anyway, we did what we do and, in truth, it seemed to go down a storm - old and new numbers e.g. Teenage Kicks (our "joke" number when you weigh up the average age of the band!) and My Generation being particularly well received! There was a bit of a panic when we realised we were down to our last 3 numbers and still had 25 minutes left to do! No matter, out came the old audience favourites "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Come Up and See Me" and we were back on track - we'd saved "Delilah" until last in the belief that it was the right song to take us out and, sure enough, the crowd nearly brought the marquee down with the chorus! Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we couldn't accede to the roars for an encore, much as we would have loved to stay on all night! Once we were off, there was time to chill out with a few beers (b-rewed not to!) and we were overwhelmed with the number of people that came up to thank us and congratulate us on what we'd done - nobody has to do that, and it really gives us a lift when it happens - eat your heart out Enrique! We've even had an enquiry about playing a gig in Durham on the back of last night! Here are some photos from Lucy's camera to give you a flavour of the fun!:






So, one down and one to go - tonight we're finishing the whole festival off, and will be on stage at 10:00pm - we're really looking forward to the headline spot, and we know the Beavers will be whipping everyone into a frenzy beforehand - if you're going down there, make sure you pack round the stage and sing your hearts out - we will do our best to give you a good time!

Log back in here in the next few days for an update on how tonight's proceedings go - can't guarantee to post tomorrow though!