THE ROCK GOD IS 40!!

Big night tonight - cos it's Andy's 4oth Birthday Party! Yes his age has finally caught up with his hair, and we'll be celebrating it in style!

It's to be hoped that, having reached this estimable age, Andy will now realise that he's supposed to go to bed before 3:00am on at least some days of the week, if he intends to reach 50 (which he probably doesn't!) - live fast, die young is his motto (well, middle aged!).

Last weekend saw us out on the road twice - Friday night at AstraZeneca to bid farewell to a group of folks who are moving on to pastures new, and Saturday night at the Congleton Beer Festival.

Friday was a good night, even if the first set felt like we were playing to people in the next county, as everyone was gathered round the bar! However, a few brave ladies eventually led the gathering to the tables, and there were even people dancing by the end! Sex on Fire and Ever Fallen in Love got their baptisms at the gig and seemed to go down well! Apparently Dave is a dead ringer for Louis Walsh as well - who would have thought it!

So, on to Saturday, and the Congleton BF. Seasoned readers of this twaddle will know that this was the 3rd year we'd been asked to play, and it is always fun - this year turned out to be no different, for a number of reasons!

When we arrived, Nigel (the beer man) said he was convinced that the beer would run out because, due to the nice weather, they had 500 people turn up for the afternoon session, all of them drinking for England! Nigel's view was that, if they ran out it was fine, but we were a bit concerned that, if it ran dry at 9:00pm, it would make for a very quiet second set for us!

However, all worked out well - the beer lasted till the end, the crowd became more and more friendly! Once the punters realised that there wasn't a crocodile infested pond between them and us, the madness began and the night finished on a real high with 3 encores (Delilah almost bringing the marquee down!)!

As ever, the evening was not without its comic moments, the supreme one (in addition to Paul falling all over the stage when he tried to jump on it!) was when an esteemed Round Tabler approached the stage, just as we were building to our big finish, and asked if he could read the raffle prize winners out! Of course, we obliged, thinking it would only be a couple - 21 prizes later he left the stage - we were fully expecting the bingo caller to appear next! It was a bit like coitus interruptus (I believe!)!!

We're expecting some photos from the BF to be posted on Flickr anytime and, when they are, we will post a link on here; in the meantime, here's a link to some video clips from the gig at the Windmill in May - they are only short, but Pete Robinson did a sterling job, and there may be some more from the Nag's Head gig later in the month (more on that to come soon).

Next gig is a wedding next Friday - let's hope the weather's nice again, and we've even had 2 bookings for next April - good God!

ANOTHER BIG WEEKEND IN STORE!

After a couple of weeks of "rest", we're gearing ourselves up for a great weekend - 2 gigs to come, and some good weather to go with it! We've spent the last couple of weeks playing with new choons, and some of them will undoubtedly get an airing in the next few days - obviously not going to say what they are, cos that would spoil the fun - suffice it to say that, in the true D&C style, they will be mainly up tempo, and familiar to most, if not all, of the crowds.

So to this weekend's gigs - Friday sees us at a private gig for AstraZeneca - a nice "loosener" for Saturday, and an opportunity for some of Paul's work colleagues to see what he gets up to in his spare time! Some of them have been threatening to come and see us for ages - let's just hope they are not disappointed! Should be a really good night - it's a leaving party for about 12 people, so I suspect spirits will be high!

Saturday sees the D&C caravan pitching up (for the 3rd successive year) at Hankinson's Field near the Leisure Centre in Congleton for the Round Table's Summer Beer Festival! This is an event that goes from strength to strength and, this year, there will be over 60 ales to sample, and they are expecting 750 or so people on what promises to be a warm and sunny evening so, if you fancy some good beer and great music (2 sets worth!), get yourselves along! The last 2 years have seen a really good atmosphere develop, and the crowds have been fantastic - never being slow to join with singing and dancing - let's hope this year is the same.

To get you in the mood, here's some photos from last year's event, and a map of how to find the "big tent"!

Congleton Beer Festival photos

Map of Beer Festival location

A NON-REPORT!

Well hello!

Not a lot to report at the moment, as we're in a "down" period between gigs - had to cancel the one at the Ship last weekend, as Paul had a family commitment, that he'd forgotten about!

Next gig is a private party at AstraZeneca on Friday 26 June, followed by Congleton Beer Festival the following day (i.e Saturday 27 June for those not familiar with calendars!) - we're doing a bit of practising in between, mainly to fine tune Matt's choirboy tones on "Chasing Cars"!

In the meantime, to keep you interested, here's a link to a Flickr album containing some short video clips from the gig at the Windmill - many thanks to Pete Robinson (drummer with that fine band The Injectors) for taking the photos - Chrissie was a bit miffed that her fella took more photos of Paul and Matt than he did of her - but we all know why that is don't we?!

ANOTHER TURN AT THE WINDMILL!

Cast your minds back to the cold dark nights of January - our first gig of 2009 saw us pitch up at The Windmill in Whiteley Green for what turned out to be a mega night of fun and entertainment! Well, we've been trying to sort out a return date for some time, and now it's happening - this Friday (22 May)!

We've just about come down from our Beer Festival high, and Andy, Matt and Paul went out for a de-brief (ie several pints!) last Thursday, while Hugh & Dave were drowning themselves off the coast of Scotland, and Chrissie was "working" (well, that's what she calls it - nudge, nudge!). The consensus was that we did pretty well - some moans about sound quality on Saturday, but judging from the audience reaction, and subsequent feedback, we were well chuffed (and we had another pint to celebrate!).

As ever though, it's onward and upward, and we're looking forward to exerting ourselves again this weekend. We'll probably pick and choose from the Beer Fest sets for Friday night but, starting tomorrow night, we'll be trying yet more new numbers so that, by the time we reach the Congleton Beer Fest at the end of June, we've got them polished.

So, get yourselves down to the Windmill on Friday; the light nights are fast approaching, and it's supposed to be a warm evening. Never mind the bright lights of Wilmslow WAG-land, Adlington is the place to be - good food, good beer and great music - what more could you ask for??

Here's the link to the Windmill website, which gives you some more information (although I notice we're not on there - obviously don't need the publicity!), and here's a map of how to get there!

A TRULY AWESOME EVENING!!

Well, there it was - gone! Loads of build up, plenty of butterflies and, before you know it, the whole thing's over! But let me tell you, it was a fantastic experience for us - Friday night was good, but last night was even better!

The Beavers did a great job of warming the crowd up and, by the time the clock ticked round to 10:00pm, we were also raring to go! Choice of first number is always tricky, and we elected to go with "Say You love Me" which has a Blues Brothers feel, and allows us to do some introductory waffle - got the crowd jumping up and down at least, and when we went straight into "Johnny B Goode" everything kicked off big style!

We changed the set round a bit from Friday, so that it was all high energy numbers, and we made sure we had enough in to last us the full hour and a half - the only problem with high energy numbers is that you have to have the energy to do them - that gets to be more of a problem each year!

Anyway, high spots were the singalongs for "Brown Eyed Girl", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "Come up And See Me" for which Hugh, our drummer got a standing ovation (obviously, as there were no seats!). The final thrash of "Teenage Kicks", "My Generation" and, particularly "Somebody Told Me" nearly ripped the roof off the marquee - and when we did "Delilah" as our encore there was just a wall of sound coming back from the audience - ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!

A big thank you to the crowds on both nights - you were tremendous, and a special thanks to Dan the sound man for getting the mix just right - and for the help when Andy's guitar sound decided to pack up just as Chrissie was about to launch into "Sweet Child of Mine" - that was a bit of a sphincter twitching moment!

We're booked in for the Congleton Beer Festival on 27 June, and the gauntlet is well and truly thrown down in the direction of the Congolians (including sweaty groupies!) to match the passion of the Macc Beer Festival crowds - can you do it??

So, we might be back next year - who knows? If they want us back, I'm pretty sure we'd be happy to go for our 5th year but, if not, this one will certainly live on in our memories! Lucy took some photos again, and I've put them onto a Flickr album - just click on the link, and then click on the slideshow button on the top right hand side.

Next gig is back at the Windmill in Whiteley Green on Friday 22 May -more about that is due course.

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!

GETTING CLOSE NOW!!

Well, only 4 days to go before the big day(s)! The extravaganza that is the Macclesfield Beer Festival kicks off this Friday (8 May) and carries on, almost without stopping (well it will seem like that to us!) until midnight on Saturday!

Knowing how demanding our public is we have, of course, been practising like mad to hone our set so that it is sharper than a very sharp thing! Only last Thursday, we were at the Brewery until gone midnight - admittedly most of the time was spent drinking beer, rolling around the floor laughing at childish jokes, and telling each other how bad we were at the respective things we do in the band - but we try to think of that as bonding!

In all seriousness, and without giving too much away, I can say that at least half the set on each night will contain songs that we didn't do at last year's Beer Fest - however, in line with our stated mission (very corporate eh what?!) most, if not all of them will be familiar and, even if they aren't, you'll still be able to dance to them (or whatever it is you are capable of doing by the time we come on!).

As ever, the event is expected to be sold out on both nights, so that will mean about 1300 punters in the tent (sorry marquee!) on each night. So, if you haven't got your ticket yet, and love good music and good beer get one quick - apparently, Enrique Iglesias is "performing" somewhere on Friday night - but would you really want to pass up Dazed & Confused to see him - no, I thought not! Details on where last minute tickets might be available from, are on the Beer Festival website.

Look forward to seeing everyone there - come up and say hello, if you dare!