It was a fairly early start (for some of us), and most of the world and his wife seemed to be heading the same way, so Salisbury proved to be a good spot to catch up on a bit of sleep, do some office work, and knock off those last few hundred pages of Lord of the Rings. One day someone will suggest a by-pass. Hold on a minute....
Once we got there, we found a lovely warm marquee, which turned out to be not for us, and a faily cool and aged barn, complete with stage. There had a been a wonderful Spinal Tap moment - Tod's requested stage dimensions had got lost in Hampshire/Wiltshire translation, and a slightly more compact version of what we had hoped for had been assembled for us.
But we are the TLOGS. We have played Bramdean Village Hall, on a stage 20 foot by about four - so we are the masters of squeezing into small spaces. Ooo er missus.
By late lunchtime, we were set up, and headed back for a snooze. It's an age thing.
We reassembled at about seven thirty, planning an eight thirty start, but, as is usual, that's not how it turned out. Things got delayed. The guests were having a lovely relaxed evening, so our start time drifted...and drifted.... luckily we had Dave's tales of Different Place's - sorry, Mark Vennis' Different Place's trip to Cannes to keep us entertained. An outbreak of namedropping that would humble even Capt Kidneystones.
After one final burst of confusion ("What do you mean you're waiting for us to start? We're waiting for you to tell us when to start...."), we kicked off after the happy couple had had their first dance.
How did it go? Well, the barn stayed pretty empty for the first half, so we were effectively playing background music for the marquee, but by the second half, we had a respectable crowd dancing on the fairly unforgiving concrete floor.
And how did we play? Once again, we were tight. Jack was superb: despite only having run through the whole setlist perhaps three times, he nailed the vast majority of the songs perfectly, and what wasn't perfect was still fantastic. Some of the off-beat sophisticated/syncopated fills had us amateurs in a panic at losing the beat, followed by broad smiles all round as everything matched up again at the end of the bar. Why, we even forgave him being a veggie (which he sheepishly announced as the burgers were being handed out at half time). And it takes a lot for farmers to accept veggies. Well done, Jack.
Other highlights included a panic inspection of the fusebox in the corner, only to find that the caterers had set up the barbeque just the other side of the wall, and the sizzling sounds and burning smell were not down to us after all. Another scary moment was when Roland the electric piano decided to have a senior moment and refused to stop playing all the recently depressed keys. Luckily, it was just after Fix You, so the ensuing din wasn't noticed - niether was the complete lack of keyboards as it was turned off and allowed to fire up again. I feel a hot credit card trip to Nevada Music coming on.
We were done by 00:30, and the traditional packing up hour was swift'n'easy. Some of the other halves were more useful (i.e., vertical) than others. The bride and groom asked the huge pianist for his autograph - he wasn't sure if they were taking the piss, but he was so smitten by the bride he would have done anything.
A fabulous drive back over the chalk downlands in the full moon brought us back to Shed 3C, where the trailer was tucked away for the night, and following the traditional Crunchy Nut Cornflake frenzy, bed was reached by 02:30.
Another top TLOGS gig.
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