This is always one of our favourite gigs and last Thursday’s was no exception.
We were very lucky to have Rachel Musson guesting with us on tenor sax, who played some great solos.
There was a good crowd who seemed to enjoy themselves, inclduing some regulars. And Roger, the sound guy, is one of the best we ever work with.
We had two sets – and this was what we played.
Chinatown
Guns Of Navarone
Latin Goes Ska
Tide Is High
Mood For Love
My Baby Just Cares for me
Work Song
Mambo Number 5
Enola Gay
Mad World
London Calling
Monkey Man
One Step Beyond
Hall of the Mountain King
Come Dancing
Simmer Down
Pata Pata
10 Out Of 10
Tainted Love
Rudy A Message To You
Baggy Trousers
My Boy Lollipop
Gangsters
And it’s always good to see our name (almost) in lights. Let’s hope we get to play there again soon, and that by then the owners have stopped victimising their staff and pay the living wage.
For our second Brighton gig in a row, we were privileged to play for Andy’s 50th birthday party in the rather swanky Metropole hotel – a much easier place to get gear into and out again at the end of the evening.
We’ve already had a great thank you note:
Thanks so much Mark. You were brilliant. Everyone loved you. Please pass on my thanks to the whole band.
We were delighted to be the main band on the Saturday night of a weekend mini-festival at the Royal Oak pub in Hollywater, near Liphook in Hampshire.
We were sharing the stage with the General Wayne sound system who have impeccable taste, and selected some great tunes for before and after our set. And while bands can never tell what the audience get to hear, the onstage sound was spot on.
Our special guest was the mighty Joe Ospalla on drums.
We didn’t get a chance to take many photos, other than a few as we were setting up.
Annie and Adam had perfect weather for their wedding last weekend, and we had great fun playing outside in the sun for their guests for two hours in the afternoon. There was a good covered stage, and we got to play next to the pool. If we really lived the rock and roll lifestyle we would have finished by throwing our amps in the pool, but we might need them again.
We were asked to feature songs by the Beat so we added Mirror in the Bathroom and Tears of a Clown to our set. Stand Down Margaret is perhaps not quite right for a wedding, though, thinking about it, quite a few of our numbers are wildly irrelevant.
It was great to see a such a good and enthusiastic turn out for our gig Upstairs at the Ritzy last night. There was lots of singing along, and some enthusiastic and authentic skanking.
We managed to take a few snaps at the soundcheck – and it’s always good to see our name in big letters.
We have never played a Christmas Eve gig before, so we were delighted to be asked by Croydon’s Oval Tavern to play there this year as it is one of our favourite venues.
We decided it should be called Ska Humbug! and it gave us the chance to play a lot of cheesy Christmas covers.
Many old Christmas songs are basically jazz swing tunes, and they always work well as ska – so it was not hard to adapt Rockaing Around the Christmas Tree, Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (which we have done before) for our line up.
We have done Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody before, so we dusted that one down. And in what we thought was a stroke of great originality we adapted the Snowman song “Walking in the Air” as a reggae instrumental. However we soon found that we were by no means the first band to do this, but no matter it still went down well.
This was our second gig at the Oval tavern in Croydon – and it was as good as our first.
It’s hard to pin down why this is such a good venue, but it has a lot to do with good sound (thanks Gavin), what is clearly a great community pub and an enthusiastic crowd.
One family group, who all got up to dance, told us they had members in their 80s, 70s, 50s and 20s. That’s one of the great things about ska – it appeals across the generations.
We played two new songs. Our ska’ed up version of Mad World, which went down particularly well, we put in the first set.
And in the second set we played It Must be True Love, a Toots and the Maytals tune which is not that well known. We have been asked to play it at a wedding gig soon, and it’s a lovely song.
This is what we played:
Chinatown
Guns Of Navarone
Latin Goes Ska
Tide Is High
Mood For Love
My Baby Just Cares for Me
Alley Cat Ska
Mambo Number 5
Mad World
London Calling
Enola Gay
Price Tag
Red Red Wine
One Step Beyond
Mountain King
It Must Be True Love
Come Dancing
Simmer Down
99 Red Balloons
Tainted Love
Rudy A Message To You
My Boy Lollipop
Night Boat To Cairo
Gangsters
We don’t have any pictures or video of the band performing, but we took some pictures in the pub garden and at the sound check before we played, and there’s one of everyone in the band, inclduing special guest Jackie on tenor sax. If anyone did take any pix, please share them to our Facebook page.
We had a blast last Saturday kicking off a ska night at the New Cross Inn with the excellent Popes of Chillitown and ska legends the Toasters.
It was a short tight set and we think it went well.
So did Ashley who messaged our Facebook page to say:
You were the best band by a mile last night – great stuff!
This is what we played:
Chinatown
Guns Of Navarone
Latin Goes Ska
Tide Is High
Mood For Love
Work Song
London Calling
Enola Gay
Simmer Down
Tainted Love
My Boy Lollipop
We didn’t have time to take any photos, so we’ve cheated with a video of last time we played at the New Cross Inn
It’s always good to play at Camden’s Dublin Castle as it such an historic music venue – home for many the early gigs of both Madness and Amy Winehouse.
We only had a short set as we were support to the entertaining and energetic Skangsters and f0llowed a great set from easydread.
It’s always a bit of a rush with lots of bands so we didn’t have time for any photos.
But this is what we played. It may have been a short set, but thanks to excellent sound it was a good one.
Chinatown
Latin Goes Ska
Mood For Love
Tide Is High
London Calling
Enola Gay
Simmer Down
Tainted Love
My Boy Lollipop
Next is two full sets at the Ritzy next Friday (April 15 2016).
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