It was great to welcome Simon and Barry on saxes who have both played on our recent gigs (including a civil partnership we didn’t write up here).
It was very hot, but we kept our fluid intake up and played two full sets.
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Snaps above by Veronica.
Our website has been unavailable for a couple of months.
It was hacked, and many of its files and records were deleted.
Fortunately we have been able to restore most of it from a back-up we made last February (though one file was corrupt), what was left by the hacker and human memory.
It’s probably not all working, and we are still going through it to improve the security to try and stop it happening again.
We are only gigging very occasionally at the moment, so it doesn’t get updated or checked very often.
But we will certainly be doing more and better back-ups in future.
We were very happy to be asked back to Croydon’s Grangewood Park for a community festival at the weekend.
Here are some photos of the band playing. And the tweet below has a video where you can hear us playing Ten out of Ten in the background.
Thank you to the Friends of Grangewood Park committee, amazing volunteers and the fantastic support from local businesses providing raffle prizes.
The icing on the cake for me was seeing how packed the new playground was. So pleased we were able to make that happen in 2022 pic.twitter.com/6uEQscNXPC
— Grangewood Park (@GrangewoodPark) September 11, 2022
The second set was shorter than we planned as drawing the raffle prizes took rather longer than enyone planned so we were not able to return and play our last few numbers.
This is what we played.
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We had a great time yesterday afternoon playing for an end of term party for staff of a west London school.
None of us have ever been asked to such an occasion before but it was a lot of fun, with much dancing and perhaps the best sing-alongs we have ever had.
And Ian, our guest tenor sax player, still had time to get to another two gigs that evening.
This is what we played.
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Yesterday we were asked to play at the 120th birthday party of Grangewood Park in Croydon. So we did, for our second post lockdown gig.
We hope to get some better photos rather than these snatched phone snaps.
The weather held up. The generator worked – except when it cut out for about a minute during Latin Goes Ska. But of course we kept playing and it came on just as we hit a new section, so the PA, bass, guitar and keys all came in together as if on cue.
We got to play an hour long set and eat too much cake.
As Desmond Dekker lived his final years in Thornton Heath, we dug out a couple of his songs that we have not played for a while as a tribute.
This is what we played.
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Yesterday we got to play for the first time in 18 months at a delightful food and drink festival in Newhaven in Sussex. Here’s a couple of soundcheck photos.
Two years ago we played just up the road at a festival in Seaford. It was good to be back – and really good to be gigging again.
The weather forecast was dodgy, but we played in bright sunshine. We had to drive through a storm on the way but the site was rain free at least until we left. Given the amount of gin on sale and consumed it would perhaps be inaccurate to say that it was a dry day.
This is what we played. We had to cut the second set a bit short as there was a curfew on the gig.
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We were delighted to be asked to play at Dan and Dinah’s Christmas plus birthday party at the back room at the Hideaway in Streatham yesterday.
It’s not a venue that we have played before but it’s a great room with a good stage and fantastic sound system. It is recommended if you are looking for a function room in South London.
We played two hour long sets – which is the longest we have played for quite some time – so we were able to pull out a few that we have not played for a while. We ran out of time so were not able to do our Christmas number – probably a good thing.
This is what we played.
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Our next gig is also in South London where we play the New Cross Inn on February 7th
The weather forecast was for thunder and lightning but the rain held off for the set we played yesterday at a community festival in north London.
Lissenden Gardens, next to Gospel Oak station, has a strong sense of community and a fascinating history – see its wikipedia page.
We had a single set, and this is what we played:
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Everyone knows that bank holidays are wet, windy and washed-out. But not so this year as the temperature has climbed to ‘phew, what a scorcher’ levels. It was therefore a good weekend for the Seahaven Beer and Music festival in Seaford, close to Newhaven, along the Sussex coast from Brighton.
We had great fun playing to a lively audience (the photo above was taken from the stage but well before we started playing).
This is what we played in a single set of just under an hour:
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We were told that the festival was meant to launch last year as an annual event, but was rained off. It got off to a flying, if delayed, start this year.
Our next gig will be in Seaford on August 24th for the Saturday Evening session of the 2019 Seahaven Beer and Music Festival.
The event arena will be open from 18:00 with our full selection of Food and Drink available.
The Music Lineup for the evening is as follows:
18:45-19:45 – https://www.facebook.com/WeAreThe808s/
20:15-21:15 – The Skamonics
https://www.facebook.com/TheSkamonics/
21:45-23:00 – LARGE 90s
https://www.facebook.com/large90s/
*All times are subject to change without prior notification*
For tickets and more information please visit: www.shbmf.co.uk/
