On to Rock and Bike, we were on at 4 o clock on Saturday afternoon, before that a VW first occurred, an unplugged set, well, I say set, we actually had a practice in Drummer Boys tent before the gig, with Drummer Boy on a sort of drum Box, Guitar Boy on acoustic guitar and me using a little battery amp for my bass, it was certainly different, Singer Boy had to sing quietly for a start! the event was filmed on a mobile phone by one of the Verbetts so if the quality's not to bad some of it might get posted on our Facebook page.
The actual gig itself started off quietly but by the end when we finished the set with Jet Plane, My Way and 500 Miles the place was rocking, a memorable gig, as Drummer Boy commented we nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when we decide to do an unscheduled encore, trouble was Guitar Boy, not expecting to have to play anymore had put his guitar down and it got knocked out of tune, so White Riot was, frankly, a bit of a mess, but fortunately it didn't seem to matter. Singer Boy couldn't sell the merch fast enough after the gig and we shifted over a £100 worth of gear in about 10 minutes.
We all enjoyed the rest of the day, as we all had an access all area's pass ( Singer Boy was disappointed when we had to tell him it wasn't those area's) which meant we got into the hospitality tent with free booze and food and we also got to see the night time bands from the hospitality area at the front of the stage. Jimi Hendrix, not the real one silly, was suberb, looked like him and sounded like him, if you're a Hendrix fan I recommend you check out Are You Experienced, you definitely won't get nearer to the real thing. I even enjoyed Toyah's Rock Vampire Show against all expectations, it's hard not to like a show crammed full of rock anthems played well with top notch sound quality when you're full of free booze.
The Rock and Bike festival is brilliant value at only £24 for a ticket, Christ, even a tight arse like me would pay that.
Three weeks off now then a busy schedule in August starting with Blythe Power's Ashes in Norfolk.
but they went down a storm, the fact that we had to restart Ace of Spades due to us losing the way, didn't seem to matter, in fact some would say it was better because I got to do the bass intro twice, well I would anyway. Due to the heat Drummer Boy finished up doing a Sandie Shaw impression, (the older readers of this blog will know what I'm talking about), by playing in his bare feet and the pub side door next to were we play was left open resulting in singer boy running up down Alfreton Road, all on his own, arms out stretched, during Jet Plane, oh yeah and doing his rock star impression by disappearing outside during the Whole Lotta of Rosie guitar solo only to reappear just in time to start the vocal again, I suppose we should just be grateful that this time he knew when the solo was due to end.
