It isn't Christmas until Noddy Holder says so

The Warm-Up for Christmas is the last Open Music Night of the year. With it being on the first of December this year it seemed a bit early to be too Christmassy; but Mel had put the tree up and was hanging decorations as we arrived to set up. So while Christmas songs still hadn't been heard on the radio, never mind 'that one', it did feel that Christmas was close enough.

In comparison to the mayhem and madness of the previous few months, this evening was a much more sedate affair, with the majority of the audience being made up of the performers; and most of them were MDF.

In fact, the last few months have been so packed that I’ve tended to limit my performances to playing with MDF. So it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to sing a whole six songs.

My first half set was all self-penned, beginning with a song written in 1999, 'A Christmas Present for Shirley' which was about ...., followed by my second Christmas themed song 'Sad St Nicholas', inspired by the desperation of last minute Christmas shopping. Then, because there were so few of us performing I gave 'Old Town Blues' and 'Canary' a run out too.

In the second half I did a couple of covers, the first Bob Dylan's 'Forever Young' followed by Neil Diamond's 'Solitary Man'. Hedley accompanied me on violin, and it was a pleasure to play along to the instrumentals and refrains.

John & Mike were next up, and complete with appropriate props sang 'Christmas in Australia'.

Their second song was also another Christmas themed one, 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer'. 'What did they say their song was called? whispered #1 Roadie. When I repeated the title she asked, 'Is that a real song?' 

Moving from the seasonal to the sublime they then performed the Willie Nelson/Elvis Presley/Pet Shop Boys', 'Always On My Mind' and  Rod Stewart's 'I Don't Want To Talk About It'.

In the second part of the evening, after an extended counting exercise, they performed 

Peter St John's 'Fields of Athenry' and Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Stuck In Lodi Again'. Did Mike really sing 'come into town on one eyed Stan? Who is 'One Eyed Stan?' and why would CCR have sung about him?

It was great to have Paddy with us again, and he was certainly on form this evening, providing an emotional roller coaster of songs. Paddy's first song was his own Christmas parody of Good King Wenceslas, the cautionary tale of Whatsislad and the over cooked sprouts. 

The mood then became more somber as he sang Glen Hughes' 'Whiskey on A Sunday', also known as 'The Ballad of Seth Davy'.

Up we soared again with the seasonal Brexit song 'TheTurkey's Referendum', another example of Paddy's genius, before he ended the first set with the Ralph McTell classic 'Streets of London'. In the second part of the evening he delighted us with the Percy French song, 'Mountains of Mourne'. Paddy finished on a high with his Humbug Christmas song, in which he admitted to being pumped up, but not with Christmas cheer.

There was only TCB missing from a full line-up of MDF this evening so Hedley stepped up to make up the numbers and to ensure that there were  more people on stage than in the audience. The Christmas selection from MDF hurtled through the decades and included  the 1934 sensation 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town', the 1958 sensation, 'Rocking Around The Christmas Tree' and the 1974 sensation, 'Lonely this Christmas'. Added to these were the distinctly not -Christmassy Travelling Wilburys', 'End Of The Line' and the John Ims song, 'In Love With The Boy', recorded in 1991 by Trisha Yearwood.

As a seasonal novelty, and as a thank you to those regular performers that had supported our Open Music Nights over the year, I raffled a plectrum maker. It was won by Ross, possibly the only performer that really has no use for it. Perhaps it will find it's way into a Tombolla over the next week or so. As I extolled the virtues of the device and the possible savings John almost stole my punchline about credit cards.

Proceedings ended a little earlier than usual, which meant that No 1 Roadie got to bed at a reasonable time for a change; no bad thing given that she was up early for work on Saturday.

So Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year from The Open Music Collective. If you are celebrating then why not raise a glass to a music packed 2018. Our season resumes in February when I look forward to hosting The Fourth 'Night of Lurve' love song competition on Friday 2nd February.