Bad News

After a splendid, if somewhat sweat-soaked rehearsal last night, we were fully primed for Her Majesty's Big Bash on Saturday.

Unfortunately, the phone rang at 8am. It was the organiser of the Bramdean Royal Celebrations, with the sad news that only 23 tickets have been sold, and the event has been cancelled.

Apparently, it's nothing to do with us keeping the punters away - it's just that Paul 'Where-ever I lay my hat' Young is bringing his band to Ropley that night, and the Alresford Music Festival will also be in full swing. Oh, and there's a huge wedding as well.

These things happen.

Old Gits in action

Rare footage of us in action has been added to the right of this page.

Our old Introduction

For those who miss our old Elgar-based intro (i.e. me), here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtQ2_U8pKXw

The 'Fingers Crossed' Tour kicks off

At last! After a dreadful long winter of rain, rain, rain, a heart attack, and yet more rain, the [Thomas Lord] Old Gits were back on tour, performing in one of our favourite local pubs, the Fox in Bramdean. We'd been promoted to playing indoors, and given a later slot than last year, but, what with it being Monday night, the crown was sparse, but very appreciative. Highlight of the evening was watching Tod keep going after a nightmare journey back from oop north, resulting in a sleep-free night Sun/Mon. His voice vanished after only three or four songs, and sort of came back a few songs later, but we muddled through, and played quite well. All those evenings in Shed 3b weren't wasted. Rumour has it that we were being filmed for posterity, so look out for coverage of us murdering all sorts of classics from the 60s right up to the present day...

The Greatham Gig

 

 

This is the one that was rescheduled after a last minute cancellation ages ago. It was worth the wait. Despite the rugby being on in the corner, we managed to grab the audience's attention and entertain them royally. Some of the young ladies from the nearby spiritual retreat actually stopped gazing adoringly at John for a bit and got up and danced. Got to love these moody black and white shots of us setting up.

 

You whaaaaaaaat?

Here, at last, is the moment when the Bride and Groom realised that they had put many hours of work into a fantastic dance to Song A, but the Thomas Lord Old Gits had kicked off with Song B (and had no intention to switch to Song A!). 

 

 

 

 



Rosie and Ed's wedding

After a disgracefully long break, filled with occasional rehearsals of variable quality, the Mudansha Tour kicked off again in the stunning surroundings of Houghton Lodge, where we were honoured to be asked to provide the music to round off Rosie and Ed's wedding day.

The omens were not brilliant - the request for a huge stage had gone missing, and we were on a tiny corner of an otherwise fantastically engineered tent. The roof of the fantastically engineered tent had a ventilating flap that was less-than-fantastically engineered, and let the rain in onto our kit and the dance floor, and shutting the flaps involved Dave and Charlie doing a routine from the Chinese People's Army Gymnastics Team. You had to see it to believe it. How no-one got injured is a mystery.

Dave was in the middle of a long weekend charity walk, and looked somewhat the worse for wear - ditto Ian (just back from a long mid-afternoon gig in Arundel) and Charlie (just back from long gig in combine harvester). Tod and Ian looked completely refreshed, though.

After some brilliant speeches and cake cutting, the whole throng gathered for the romantic first dance. Once again, there had been a tiny misunderstanding, and as the bride and groom prepared to do the routine they had rehearsed to Fleetwood Mac's cheesy pop classic 'Ooooh, you make loving fun', the Old Gits launched into Fleetwood Mac's gritty blues classic from the mid-Sixties, 'Need your love so bad'.

Confusion reigned for several bars, as the bride and broom looked at the band in disbelief, and the band all looked at each other wondering what had gone wrong (apart from Charlie starting in the wrong key). There was then a collective 'Oh Well' (geddit?), a mass shrugging of shoulders, and everyone just got on and danced.

For a band woefully short of competitive performance, we did very well. There was the odd outbreak of cramp, the odd outbreak of crap, but when the rigorously enforced stop time came, we think everyone had had a good time. We certainly had, and that's (almost) what counts.

We then ate too much wedding cake and cheddar. Nom nom nom.