HOT, HOT, HOT - TO THE POWER OF 2!

What a weekend! For the first time in a long while, we did a "double header" to round off the Grand Pub Spring Tour; Friday night saw our debut at The Wharf while, on Saturday, we returned to The Old Ship Inn. We were hoping for a warm welcome at both venues - and we certainly got that!

The Wharf was taken over by Chris about a year ago, and it has taken us this long to get on stage there because Chris is a little nervous about the noise levels and the neighbours - so we provided a high level of reassurance for him, without having a high level of confidence that we would be able to match that reassurance! The first set started early (8:30), so that we could be done by 11:00 - this obviously fooled some people (despite our pre-publicity), because Pete Banks (Papparazzi Pete, to our regular readers!) arrived at 9:00pm and was bemused to find we were in the middle of "Paint It Black" - our fifth song! We did play a somewhat "mellow" first set, much to the consternation of Andy & Chrissie, who were complaining that they couldn't hear anything; so, we decided to surreptitiously "tweak" the volume for the second set and hope that Chris either a) didn't notice or b) didn't say anything! As it happened, the second set exploded! The pub was full, everyone was up and bouncing around, we finished spot on 11:00pm and nobody complained about the noise - all in all, a brilliant night!!

One thing that is worthy of mention is the great job that Chris has done in having the pub double up as a sauna - the temperature by the end must have been around 40 deg C (and that was without any obvious signs of additional heating)! There are a a set of mirrors on the wall behind where the band plays, and these were all running with rivers of condensation, coats that were hanging up were wetter than if they'd been left outside, and Paul's shirt was the focus of many hurtful and unnecessary comments about its resemblance to a used bath-towel!! However, all the heat and sweatiness actually added to the night, and it felt like a good old Chicago "speakeasy" by the time we were done! Hopefully, we'll be back soon.

Following this warm experience, we approached Saturday evening with some trepidation! The Ship is known for its hospitality, and part of this reputation is based on the 2 welcoming coal fires that blaze in hearths at opposite ends of the bar - whatever the time of year, time of day, or temperature outside! Having been broiled within an inch of our lives the previous night, we weren't sure we could survive the dehydrating effects of 3+ hours in that sort of environment! Sure enough, we pitched up at 8:00pm, to set up, to find that The Ship's version of the twisted Firestarter had indeed been in action! We worked up a fair sweat just assembling the gear and when 9:00pm came around, and the pub had filled up a bit, it was blindingly obvious that some serious fluid replacement therapy would be in order - in the spirit of water conservation (even though it was pi**ing down outside) we decided that pints of Storm Brewing's finest ales would be the best means of achieving this!

We put a few different numbers in the set from Friday night, and they seemed to do the job - there was an additional, unplanned, variation to the set when we had to embark on a Shadows version of "My Generation", as Paul forgot the words! Now, this song only has about 20 words in total (one of which is "Ba" as Matt so helpfully pointed out!), so it really does take some doing to forget about 18 of them - especially when we've only performed it about 200 times! Anyway, nobody died, and I'd like to think the audience appreciate these occasional divergences!

A big thanks to everyone who turned up for the gigs, and a SPECIAL mention to those who came to BOTH gigs! We do appreciate it immensely, and it is quite humbling to see people turn out time and time again - we love what we do, and we hope we give you just a little bit of enjoyment - after all, if you can't have fun, what's the point?!

So, our Spring Tour is complete - next gig is a Private Party for Injector Pete's 50th (oops, said I wouldn't mention that!) and, before that, we shall be enjoying the delights of the Macclesfield Beer Festival - hope to see some of you there!