The End of the Jacques Cousteau Tour. Perhaps.

And so our 2014 Tour - the Jacques Cousteau Tour - came to a rather premature halt in familiar territory: in the lovely sweeping chalkland overlooked by Old Winchester Hill.

There are three ways to be sure that you're playing at a proper farming gig. First, and most obviously, the venue is full of farmers - including special guest David Handley of FFA. Second, the venue smells of sheep, being a big new concrete barn that, until moments before we arrived, must have had several hundred of 'em inside. And third, what sounds like the worlds most unoriginal click-track - a single pulse every five seconds - is, in fact, an electric fence energiser just outside the barn interfering with the PA. I bet my cousin Rupert Flindt (top sound engineer at the BBC) never has that problem when he's setting up Elbow at the Albert Hall.

 

Here we see Todd manfully trying to balance our rich, nuanced output against some raw whitewashed walls. Helen bravely took over later, and then Simon arrived to twiddle the knobs as we got going. I did ask Helen (rather late in the evening) if it had gone well. "Shmm fibble wuttle snibs tee hee puppies burp" she explained. 

 

See what I mean about the walls? Note the two groupies staring wistfully out of the barn, thinking of all the shopping they'd rather be doing.

The view out of the barn.

Anyway, the punters poured in - helped, no doubt, by the signs cluttering half of central southern Hampshire. It was pointed out that a 'D' was perhaps missing from the end of the first word. And despite all the moaning about the walls and the concrete, we has a great evening, and we hope everyone else did. I thought we were technically on top form - nice to have Quentin back from his conference. I asked how it had gone, and he told me: "I can make a window to discuss your compatible incremental resources." Which was nice of him.   There was a lot of dancing, lots of cheering, and - bizarrely - a vast crate of Magnum ice creams for everyone to enjoy. Mix that with a few pints of beer, a burger, a sausage or two, leap around for a bit to some classic tunes from the sixties right up to the present day.........Maybe it wasn't sheep that the barn smelt of.

Perhaps Helen should have the last work of the Tour: "Fshmuggly!"

Can that really be it for 2014?



Back hard at it.

Nice Volvo.....

The blog has been very quiet recently. It's not right, you know. Mind you, there a very good reason for it. We'd been booked for the inaugural 'T in the Dark' festival in the windswept beauty of West Stratton. And a small problem had arisen. Quentin the drummer was unavailable. He would be away at a conference discussing  'organisations believing in integrated transitional projections, while needing to get on-message about thier third-generation contingencies.'


A drummer was needed. Up steps Tai to fill the breach. However, volunteering to learn three hours' worth of hits from the Sixties right up to the present day is not to be taken lightly. Especially for one so young as Tai. And there were moments during the weeks of rehearsals when it seemed that the task may be proving just a bit too much.


However, we should have had no concerns at all. All the phenomenal effort that she put in paid off handsomely, as, after only a few bars of the first song, it became obvious that she was going to be fine - more than fine, bloomin' marvellous. In fact, as soon as this became apparent, we all played our socks off. We over-ran the 11pm finish time handsomely, and no-one cared. A great evening.

One day, when the Rock Gods decree that we need a new name, we need look no further than what was written on the stage on Saturday: Fish Salad Bar 2.

Setting up in the afternoon........

The Thomas Lord Old Gits in full cry.....I think. They can be recognised by their shirts. I think Dave and Tai are there somewhere!

Another milestone

Today the blog had its 30,000th viewing.

A half gig.

For Jo's party, she asked a selection of the hard-core Open Mic Nighters to come along and entertain was what a suspiciously young crowd. Some of the TLOGS were there, some of the Byron Project, and this week's line-up of Vacant Landing.

And so, for one night only, it was a big West Meon welcome for the Vacant Gits Project.

Bonus Quiz Question: which member of VGP doesn't know how 'Hey Jude' goes? Answer on 0898 672910 (£3.50/min)

The JC Tour continues....

Hardly had the famous dust settled from the opening gig of the Jacques Cousteau Tour than we were back down to the Thomas Lord for our second session down there in eight days. It was Graham and Vikki's wedding anniversary bash - somebody did tell me what particular anniversary it was, but I didn't believe it could be that many - and it was, in theory, a closed pub/invite-only bash. You could have fooled me - from behind the organ it looked like the whole of the village was there anyway. Maybe that's why we all love West Meon.

Anyway, we weren't the only band there - it was a bit of an allsorts evening, but we thought we played well, and had a thoroughly good time. And you know the TLOGS Motto: we enjoy ourselves; if anyone else does, it's a bonus.

Many congratulations to G & V.

Sssshh - top secret

This is a Northrop Grumman B2  'Stealth' bomber. It is famous for many reasons. It is almost undetectable, using a clever combination of black, radar-absorbing paint and by having not a single square edge on it. Its payload has unimaginable power, and strikes fear into the heart on the unwelcome. There's hardly a distinguishing feature to be seen on it - not a badge, not a label, not nuffink. 'Stealth' indeed - no other name suited it.

So, we are proud to present what must be called, using the same reasoning, the Thomas Lord Old Gits' Stealth Trailer:

Finally....the Jacques Cousteau Tour starts.

Most of Southern England had a bit of a shock on Monday: cars from Kent to Cornwall had a fine layer of dust on them. The meteorologists had a fancy explanation that involved low pressure to the West of Africa sending Saharan dust high into the atmosphere, then north, whence it was rain-washed to the English countryside. This is utter bollocks of course - the day the Met Office get anything right will be the day they explain why there has been no Global Warming for seventeen years.

It's far simpler than that: the Thomas Lord Old Gits opened the 2014 Jacques Cousteau Tour at their home pub, and, without a shadow of a doubt, whipped up one hell of  storm. We were on great form - smoothly continuing our form from Monday's rehearsal. Perfect for blowing the cobwebs - and dust - out of the system.

Nice to see Tod and Helen getting into the spirit of Jacques Cousteau by flooding their house ten minutes before we were due to start playing. Luckily, a stopcock was eventually found, and the TLOGS were able to carry on and perform. As Helen so succinctly put it at about midnight, "Fsssr sshmuffin fssogggle nug tee hee burp!"