ABBA-MANIA & OTHER STORIES!!

Mad November draws to a close, and there are so many stories to tell - and so little time!!

Since we played the gig at The Ship on the 6th, we've played 3 more (4 gigs in a month is almost unheard of!), and all of them have happened without Dave (or HoliDave, as we know him, affectionately!). The reason Dave has not been with us is that he has been girding what is left of his loins to follow in the footsteps of Vasco de Gama, Christopher Columbus, Chay Blyth and several pods of dolphins to cross the Atlantic! Dave actually left port (in a boat, in case you are wondering!) on the 21st of November (i.e last week) but, for some reason, he had to go to Spain for 4 weeks to prepare! We believe it was to do with polishing his sextant or something but, anyway, he is now well on his way to St Lucia - or maybe that is stretching a point, because latest intelligence suggests that there is so little wind en route that they can't use the sails, and so have had to pull into the petrol station on the Cape Verde islands to fill up with diesel! As well as being somewhat annoying and time-consuming, it must have cost them a fortune - but Dave has Bernard Sumner from New Order on board, he can probably afford it! Even so, if the wind doesn't spring up soon, it will get interesting, because I'm guessing there are not that many petrol stations in the middle of the Atlantic! Anyway, Dave is not due to be back in Blighty until 21 December, so he'll even miss the Christmas Thrash at The Ship (more of that later) - I'm sure he will have a good time, but we all wish we had his holiday card!

The 3 gigs we've played since I last put finger to keyboard have been:

13 November at the Mykita Ballroom in Macc: this was for Carolyn's 60th birthday, and it was a really good night - made all the better by watching people do ballroom dancing to Teenage Kicks!!

18 November at the Beer & Curry Night at The Roebuck in Mobberley: our first time there and, although the early part of the night felt as though we were playing in somebody's dining room, things really picked up towards the end and, after thinking we would be slinking off at 10:00pm while nobody was looking, our planned 10:30 finish stretched to 3 encores and an 11:00pm end! Fortunately, most of the locals were in the pub, so we didn't disturb too many folks on school night! Many thanks also to some of our old friends who journeyed out into the wilds of Cheshire to join in the festivities - Roger, Pete, Ian (and your friends and families), it was very much appreciated, and it was also brilliant to see Paul Gregory (our "old" bassist), who sneaked in to see what he was missing!

20 November at Macc Golf Club: this was Brigid's 50th birthday party, and was a memorable occasions on several levels! Firstly, we turned up to set up at 2:30pm, only to find Andy in the foullest of moods because he'd done the usual Rock God thing, and not gone to bed until 7:30 that morning, and was "most distressed" when Matt knocked on his door at 2:00pm, as previously arranged (Matt being there at all was an achievement in itself!). Anyway, not only did we have to deal with the bear with the sore head that was Andy, we also had to deal with Steve the bar steward! I won't go into detail, other than to say that, for a fleeting (or not so fleeting) moment, I was convinced that he must be related to the ex-landlord of the Millstone pub (see blog post for 20 September 2009!)!

Having sobered Andy up, and set the gear up (and annoyed the Members with an over-loud sound check!), we moved on to the evening itself. We were viewing it with trepidation, as Brigid had asked us to do an ABBA number so that she, and her mate Nat, could join us on stage! Now, ABBA and D&C are not natural bedfellows; in fact Matthew nearly had a cardiac arrest when it was suggested that we do "Does Your Mother Know?" (only the fact that Nat is his next door neighbour convinced him!), and Andy was trying to work out how he could give it a "My Chemical Romance" vibe! However, we had sort of practised it, but did not have the chance for run through with the girls beforehand but, as you 'll see if you scroll through to video 7 in the video link above, it more or less worked, and went down a storm with the crowd! It has to be said that the whole night was a blast, and we finished around 12:40am with everyone baying for more - everyone went home happy!

Surprisingly, we are quiet in December - but it's probably just as well, because our next outing is going to be some sort of a night, as we are back at The Ship for our pre-Christmas party on Saturday 18 December!! Nobody likes to tempt fate, but if it's half as good as the gig at the beginning of November was, it will be a night and a half! Don't just come along to see us - come to experience the unique atmosphere of a great pub (full to the rafters) with great beer and pretty good music - the perfect way to kick off Christmas week!!

One final word; since we put the "hit counter" on the blog in mid-October, traffic has gone mad! I think there were something like 995 hits then but now, just over a month later, it's up to 1700+!! Hopefully, it's a distracting, if not enjoyable read but, if anyone wants to post a comment, or send us an e-mail feel free (we read them all!)