Farewell to Steve the Builder

Steve the Builder moved out today - a great loss if only because he lived closest to Shed 3b and has never complained once! A good man.

But here's another June gig

Rumour has it that we're booked for a home gig at the Thomas Lord on June 1st.
Is that June officially full?

Gig cancellation

The nice man who had pencilled us in for the gig in Winchester if the Devizes gig were to be cancelled (which it was) has just texted to say 'thanks, but no thanks'. His wife has organised something/someone else. I did suggest that he came to the Tichborne Arms to see what we were like, so either he did, and didn't like what he saw, or he didn't, and therefore missed how good we were. I hope that that's all clear!

Urgent message from Charlie about anaesthetic

Frrrrzz wooooooozyhsiiclsio ,ksdo cmdosuo somxc bum!!!!

Return to Cheriton

It is great to be able to report that the nice people at the Flowerpots in Cheriton have asked us back to play at this year's Beer Festival. We know that we had a fantastic time last year see here but, even so, it's encouraging to know that we did well enough to be asked back. An early harvest and Screwfix shutting down for the August bank holiday would help.

No rehearsal on Monday

We won't be gathering on Monday - we all appear to have something else to do. Charlie, for instance, will be still woozy after enduring this little job. Not that anyone would notice the difference. The surgeon has promised that he will be playing his huge organ without any pain ever again. We'll see.

The 2012 Tour finally starts

And so the 'God Bless You, Ma'am' Tour 2012 finally got going in the bucolic paradise that is Tichborne. There were some, who shall not be named, who were a trifle concerned about this first gig of the year - recent rehearsals had been somewhat underattended, underproductive and underwhelming. In fact, the one before this gig had been officially defined by a well-respected international panel of experts as 'Crap'.



Anyway, the bar had been cleared, the little present left by the resident labracocker/doberoodle/daschboxer had been removed, and we squeezed ourselves into the long narrow dining area. I'm not saying it was that long, but we were at one stage calculating the time delay between Ian thumping his drums and the vocalists hearing him.

Those doubting the TLOG's ability to raise their game for the big night (and how nice it was to see the blackboard advertising 'Live Music Night', and not 'Nite') should hang their heads in shame; we were spot on. True, there were one or two stumbles ("Switch the microphone on, Mindy"), one or two missed starts, and an encore that could have been better rehearsed, but the assembled throng seemed to enjoy it, and one more booking was provisionally made before we'd even packed up.

Nice to see a strong turn out from the West Meon contingent, and from Alresford Rugby Club checking if we were in fact what they wanted for their 21st Anniversary Ball. Special mention to Rufus from Blackhouse Farm wearing out his trousers at the knees on the harsh carpet. (Don't ask.)

We now have a bit of a gap before the main body of gigs gets going. Time for a bit of fine tuning, and then we can take 'em on.