Recipe for an entertaining evening..

Ingredients:

• 5 Large glasses of wine
• 1 Old age pensioner
• 4 glow sticks
• Packet of sausage shaped balloons
• 1 great band
• 1 great venue
• 1 Tim Vine joke book

Explanation:

It was Friday night and my band, FireWire, played a Red Nose Party gig at the fabulous Brickmakers in Norwich. My mother, Jean, 76 and her toyboy (Brian, 75) decided they would like to come along. I did point out that it would be very loud and they would be out very late to which I was sternly told that they are not decrepit yet! They accepted a lift with the band and when I arrived, at 7:30, there sat Mother tucking into a vat of wine!…sorry Spritzer, apparently. I have to add here that my Mother is by no means an alcoholic and is usually seen at her local club sipping on a small gin once a week and never more that 4 in an evening! Well, we rocked our way through the first set and the pub was filling nicely. The pennies were coming in for Comic relief as Laurie and I were reading from the fab Tim Vine’s joke book, we asked for a pound to start and a pound to stop, I particularly liked….”I couldn’t understand why the frisby was getting bigger, and then it hit me”….

We took a break halfway through and as I was chatting to friends, I glanced over at the table and there sat Mother, wearing glow stick bracelets whilst Brian blew up balloons and let them go to fly about the pub (making Mother giggle like a toddler) :-/

Of course you are never too old to have a good time and at one point we broke into a bit of cheese and whilst playing a spot of Hi Ho Silver Lining, I noticed that Mother’s glow stick adorned arms were the only ones in the whole pub still waving away during the verses! (apparently that was her way of ‘dancing’ whilst everyone else was up on the floor).

At the end of the evening she threw her last glass of wine all over herself and after declaring to our drummer, Chris, that she was as p****d as a newt, she was escorted to the car and driven back to Dereham by our guitarist, Laurie. I do hope her Warden at the Sheltered Housing complex doesn’t find out what she was really up to during the ‘nice quiet evening with her daughter’.

All I can say is thanks Mum for being almost as entertaining as the band, she can’t wait to come and see us again. I hope I am still as full of life as she is at her age :0)

Singing in the wrong socks

Well, if you have read previous rantings you will know that I have been found singing in the wrong trousers before….well not to worry, I sold the trousers in question on Ebay to avoid this happening again! This week, I was half way through a delightful acoustic gig when I realised I had not changed my socks! You see, there are lots of important factors to take into account when preparing for a gig. One must take special care of ones voice of course, I find it helps to start the day with honey on toast, stop drinking milky tea after midday,  swap to pineapple juice and make sure I drink plenty of water, this may just be psychological but it seems to work for me! Warming up the voice and learning the new songs goes without saying. The next most important thing is to make sure  you have the correct outfit. As I go out with a classy acoustic duo Avenue and the party rock band FireWire I have to make sure I know which gig it is before leaving the house, I live in fear of opening my little case when I am 100 miles from home at a wedding breakfast with Avenue Acoustic and finding that I have packed my sparkly jeans and denim wasitcoat! Luckily, I haven’t done that yet….however, halfway through about the third song this weekend I started getting foot fatigue, this was way to early, until I realised with horror, I was wearing the wrong socks! I had a word with myself, gritted my teeth, and got through it….what a professional!

the cat is alive!

Sometimes even in the most hectic times of the year, the only thing I can think about is the cat! Having let him out at 11:00pm last night he failed to appear until about 20 minutes ago. All I could think of was that he was out there, alone, cold, hungry, possibly lost…  I do often wonder what he really is doing, maybe I could get a collar with a small video camera in it so that I can see what he does. In my imagination he wanders about for a bit, takes a run in the field behind our house, maybe curls up under a hedge for a snooze and then wanders home. In reality, he probably terrorises the neighbourhood cats (who are all significantly smaller than him), bites the head off a mouse and leaves it on an old ladies doorstep, has a poo in the neighbours lovely flower bed and slides accross the bonnet of nice new car with his claws out!….no not my beloved F.W.  Oh well, he is happily snoozing on the bed now, clearly totally unaware of the worry he has caused me today! Maybe he is dreaming about the extra special turkey cat food I have for him for Christmas day!

Anyway, Merry Christmas to all those happy cats out there comes with love from our extra special F.W x

Not just any acoustic duo…

A long overdue mention of a recent singing marathon as part of Avenue Acoustic. I have to say it was the most random request which turned into a thorougly enjoyable couple of days performing like posh buskers in the M&S store in Norwich. I must admit I was worried about a gig for the first time in ages. Not only were we to play from 1pm to 7pm both Thursday and Friday but we also had a booking for the Friday evening from 8:45 until 11pm. That all added up to a brave 14 hours in 2 days! My first fear was the obvious one…will my voice last?… then there was the… ‘ will we look silly?’, ‘how will we get the equipment in?’ …’will we get from one gig to the next in time?’….plus many other worries I have since forgotten.  I made sure I was well prepared and my voice was in tip top condition….starting on the Wednesday the rules were –  No dairy,  plenty of honey, lemon and also pineapple juice and the hardest of all for me…..minimal talking!

Well it worked! The staff at M&S were lovely and the days went by so quickly I would have loved to have stayed for longer. Towards the end Laurie admitted that playing the acoustic guitar for that long meant that his fingers felt like he had been trying to slice them in half with cheese wire for two days,  but we decided that we had the best job in the world. Where else can you work six hours and get told every five minutes that you are brilliant? This must be the other end of the scale to that of being a football ref where several thousand people a week can tell you that you are w****r (fill in the blanks as you wish).

The two days were concluded with an extremly enjoyable gig at the Yaxham Mill Restaurant where we entertained diners with our music and charm and finished at 11pm in full voice and for Laurie….numb fingers I expect!

The old bat sings again!

Last night was this years Halloween gig with Firewire and I dug out my bat wings and dusted off my bat ears. The preperation started on Wednesday when we decided we wanted to include a song about something horror related…into set one went Psycho Killer, with some lovely harmonies inspired by the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain, was popped into the first set and for the second set we counldn’t resist ‘What’s that coming over the hill is it a Monster’?

We set the mood by dressing up the pub with black curtains covered in cobwebs, black and orange balloons, halloween tinsel and lots of sweets! Everyone at the Duke of Edinburgh, Bacton, Norfolk soon got in the mood and despite a recently recovered male vocalist, a poorly base player, an incredibly hot pub and a second set lasting an hour and a half we had the pub rocking until midnight!

Then it’s not over for us..we are shattered, hot, hoarse, very soar feet and we have to pack all the equipment away and drive home! We got away at 1:30am and were very glad of the extra hour when we got home. When you add up the amount of hours put in to working in a band the pay is not that great, it’s a good job we love it!

Just remember when you ask for a price for a band for a pub or a party or wedding, it is not just the 2 x 1 hour sets that we play, it is all the hours learning, practicing, travelling to gigs, insurance, equipment etc.

But hey….that’s rock and roll :0) x

Where to begin

Sometimes when I start something it turns out to be so complicated I really struggle to keep at it, this is how I feel about trying to start my first blog! But I think I have finally figured it out and I can begin, but where to begin?  I have so much to say even on a fairly average day whether it be a story from last nights gig, a funny thing that happened on the radio or a strange voice over job….or I could just tell you about my cat…F.W.

Life as a singer in a band is never dull but is not all rock and roll and as glam as a lot of people think, it takes a LOT of hard work! I don’t think people realise how much work you put in for the pay either! Still, it’s always great when you get the wonderful feedback that we regularly get as Firewire and Avenue. I will put up some links to our site when I figure out how to do it!  But for now I am just going to be pleased with myself that I finally got a blog started and I will sign off and look forward to enjoying my pizza.