No snow for April's Open Music Night.

It was a real wrestle deciding whether or not to cancel March's Open Music Night because of the weather. I'd watched as other events fell by the wayside and kept an eye on the forecast, which was decidedly unfavorable. Should I wait until the last minute and see what the weather threw at us, or play safe?

The decision was made for me because of the logistics involved in getting all of the equipment together. On Wednesday evening, I would go the the lock-up and load all of the lighting equipment. On Thursday evening I would fill the van with all of the PA, and then on Friday morning I would add the guitars ready to go straight from work to The George.

On Friday morning it seemed as though I'd been a bit hasty as the sky was clear and the roads to Coventry were mostly clear but as the afternoon wore on, conditions deteriorated and I think it was a wise decision.

The weather struck again for MDF, who were booked to play St Patrick's Day at The Two Boats, Long Itchington. The band and PA made it, but audience members were disapointingly thin on the ground. Well, it was either the snow or the celebrations of Irish Rugby success that saw people head early for home.

Fortunately, the snow had gone by the time of The All Fools' Night Celebration

I started things off as per usual with a reflection on funeral arrangements, 'Be Careful What You Wish For When You Die'. This was followed by a Norwegian Wood parody about a dog with a taste for, well, Norwegian Wood. I started the second part of the evening with 'Twenty Spoons of Sugar'.

Steve Edgar's joke was highly entertaining. With a lengthy preamble the moth told the psychiatrist why it had come into the therapy consulting room - the light was on.

His musical offerings included

Bob Dylan's 'Famous Blue Raincoat' and the 60's Irish folk song 'Carrickfergus', and

Dean Martin's 'Memories Are Made of This'. His last song of the evening was Eric Idle's Monty Python classic, 'Always Look on The Bright Side of Life'.

Shirley has been bravely tweaking the mic levels, and it made a real difference this evening. With their foot tapping jigs and reels, No Strings Attached sounded fantastic.Frequent vistors to the English Folk website

Their repertoire included 'The Evercreech Hornpipe' and reels Twin Sisters, Morpeth Rant, The High Level Bridge and The Wonder

Sandi & Tugrul presented what I considered to be the funniest joke of the evening which went along the lines of: “A elderly man arrives home with flowers on the couples wedding anniversary. In the past he has been notoriusly lax, and his wife is so pleased that he’d remembered she told him that as a reward he could have ‘super sex’. The husband though about it for a second or two and said, ‘I’d like the soup please’.”

Their songs began with The Kinks' 'Lazing on A  Sunny Afternoon', Leonard Cohen’s 'Dance Me To The End of Love', which was thoroughly enjoyed by George behind the bar, and the crowd pleasing, Led Belly’s Midnight Special.

In the second part of the evening we had time for two more from Sandi & Torgul The Beatles, ‘When I’m 64’ and one from a very young Michael Jackson, ‘Rockin’ Robin’

With the exception of RD Hunter’s ‘Wait in The Water’, which he sang in the later part of the evening, Lew Bear's songs were of his own composition. Mad Old Girl, The Grass grows greener on the other side and A Northampton Rhyme. The audience particularly enjoyed his critique of ‘White Van Man’ at my expense.

  

MDF were next up, and because there was no Ross tonight it meant that Tracey had all the limelight to herself. 

Josh Turner's 'Longer The Waiting', The Travelling Willburys 'End of The Line'

Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Proud Mary'. What we did in the second half is a blur.

Paddy Wex was on form tonight with a wonderful song about the importance of neutering your cat, called ‘Calling The Vet’. His second was a more serious piece relating to a local historical event and the social injustice that lead to it ‘The West Haddon Football Riot’ took place in response to The Enclosures Act.

Out On The Mira

The end of the evening was a bit of a blur, with Paddy, MDF and Steve. My failure to immediately write down MDF and Paddy's final songs meant that by the time I came to finish the blog I couldn't remember what they were.  

Paddy brought the evening to a close, dipping into the MDF songbook and leading the ensemble with Steve Earle's 'Galway Girl.