Bangers and Mash

There was standing room only again at The George; this time for the celebration of our 3^rd Bangers and Mash Night. The consumption of Maggie's delicious bangers and mash interrupted the normal proceedings. No one wanted to be called to the stage whilst they had a face full of sausage, or gravy dribbling from their chin, so the order of performances was chosen in order to catch performers before their dinner arrived, or wait until they had had time to digest. Fortunately one or two had come along early so we didn't have long to wait between performers. The greatest difficult was getting too and from the stage area because of the diners.

I kicked things off with a new song
about marital disharmony; a song that
acknowledges the impact of those two little words, 'Don't Start!'. This was followed by old favourites (well mine anyway) 'Under The Patio', requested by my good friend John and 'In The Woods (Like Bear Grylls)'.

'Dangerous' Derek Mayer demonstrated how and why he gained his sobriquet by bringing down the back cloth, which never recovered its previous taughtness but remained resolutely droopy for the whole evening, and then crashing his pa equipment into the overhead

lighting gantry as he tried to leave quietly without drawing attention to himself. Still his time on stage was well spent, and we enjoyed his mastery of the technical wizardry. He opened with the first part of Queen's 'Bohemian Rapsody', but stopped, expecting us to be relieved that he wouldn't be hogging the mic for the next ten minutes, but I think that we were all a little disappointed and had readied ourselves for helping him out with the 'Gallileo Gallileo Gallileo Figaro.…..'. Instead he channelled his inner Freddie and gave us a 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love', followed by Brian Adams romantic 'Baby I'm Amazed By You'. You've been married two months now Derek, you can stop now, you're making the rest of us look bad. There's been an increase in the appearance of Bob Marley on the set lists at The George and Derreck joined the ranks with his cover of 'Three Little Birds'. Audience participation was essential for the 'der der der der der der der'.

Nigel and Darren were back again, but this time they were accompanied by Hedley on violin – Nigel started with a cover of T-Rex's 'Life's A Gas', Darren was singing for Bob Dylan's 'Knocking On Heaven's Door'. Their final offering of the night was another Sterophonics cover, 'Hangbags And Gladrags'. A couple of months ago, I introduced Nigel as Lewis, he was very gracious about it. Tonight, I introduced him as Martin, the make of his guitar. He was very gracious about it. Next time Nigel!

It was the first time we had seen traditional folksters Brian and Allan. I didn't have time to introduce them properly as once the sound was deemed ok Brian was off and into his first song. I

didn't catch the title, but it contained many 'foll diddles'. Their second was much more familiar, 'Spancil Hill', and then a lively 'Rocky Road to Dublin 12345', a song guaranteed to drain the breath of all but the most skillfull singers.

Allan, to just the sound of his own drum accompaniment, sang the song of The Dirty Blackleg Miner; his accent and demeanor lending a brooding authenticity to the performance. In 1844 a national lockout was brought down by 'Blackleg' miners, and it hardly seems thirty years since the NUM dispute was ended in a similar fashion.

Tonight we had two Steves; the first was our regular performer, Steve Edgar, who declared his songs would be full of teenage angst. His first, 'You've Got Your Troubles I've Got Mine'. This was follwed by Frank Sinatra's 'My Way', but not the angry Sid Vicious version. His final song was the lesser known Kinks B-side 'I'm Not Like Everybody Else' Bar The Kinks it was a bit light on the anst in the end, but well delivered and much enjoyed non the less.

It as great to see Peter and Shirley again. This evening they asked to be introduced under the name of Stained Glass Bluegrass, and they were joined by Keith, who used his double bass to dramatic effect. I love their pace and harmonies, especially when they give familiar songs the bluegrass treatment. They began with Gordon Lightfoot's 'Redwood Hill', 'Sea of Heartbreak', Alison Krouse & Union Station's 'Too Late To Cry'.

Roland goes Cob Coaling

 

The other Steve, Steve Bates, is a regular performer at Folk at The Oak, Crick I wish I was in Carrick Fergus, his own David Bowie tribute, which I think was called 'Put on Your Red Shoes and Dance The Blues' and the touching story of his meeting with his son, years after he emigrated to New York called 'Thirty Years On'.

Roland was on his own this evening singing 'Ain't Nobody's Dirty Business', and then playing a ragtime medley called 'For The Folk at The Oak'. Finally, he put down his guitar, to sing an old Lancashire Bonfire Night song, 'Cob Coaling', with considerable support from the audience during the chorus.

Crow's Feet were next up.  I've finally come to terms with the Greengrass/Crow's Feet distinction. Even though there are the same people on the stage there is a difference in material and sound. Ian is the principle vocalist I aint ever satisfied, Moon Over Memphis, It's Not Unusual, Country Girls, Paranoid "It is a rock club after all"

The battery pack decided to die on Ian's skeletal guitar, so he borrowed my accoustic, unplayed up to this point this evening. For some reason, it was as quiet as his had been post battery death, but a quick twiddle of the guitar's volume put things right. I had turned it down when playing with MDF at Yelvertoft Marina. A problem with the sound deck set up meant that my guitar was the loudest instrument on the stage. I had forgotten to turn it back up.

With a little bit of time left for a few more performers it was Brian and Allan that stepped up with Brian giving us a couple of delightful Irish songs, 'Dance Around The Spinning Wheel', and 'Martha, The Fower of Sweet Strabane'.

Allan then finished with The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, our only Remembrance Day related song of the evening. Kate provided a timely finger, to scroll the song up on the tablet.

So as not to end the night on a sad note, we played out with an ensemble, and in the absence of MDF, took a couple from their song sheets and we sang 'Baton Rouge' and finished on 'Wagon Wheel'. There's a bit of video footage of this if you'd like to see.

Rock me Mama like a . . . . .

I hope you can join us for our last evening of the year, as we begin the warm-up to Christmas. The first event of 2017 will be February's 'Night of Lurve', a chance to blow the dust of those romantic ballads, love songs and smut.