It’s been a couple of weeks since our gig at the Ritzy in Brixton. As we have been redesigning the website (and it’s not quite finished yet) it’s not been possible to add new posts.
But it was a great gig, with a lively and enthusiastic audience. Chris even brought his mum.
Sometimes everything comes together to make a gig a bit special.
That’s what happened last Thursday when we played the Earl Haig Hall in Crouch End.
It was by general agreement one of the best gigs we’ve played. It is hard to identify exactly why but these are some of the ingredients that helped.
It is a great venue, not just in the sense of being the kind of place that we’d enjoy coming to for a drink, but it has a proper stage with enough space for us to set up without all being on top of each other. Having a bit of space between us means that we are more likely to hear the rest of the band, and not just whoever is standing next to us.
The venue has a good sound system and someone who knows how to use it properly. This meant that not only was there good sound for the audience but on stage too. We were well-balanced and the volume was right.
The audience was enthusiastic which always encourages us to play well. This was not a dance venue (though that didn’t stop a certain amount of bopping between the tables and chairs). Sometimes that means we just become background music, but this was not the case on Thursday.
We played one long set which we think we paced well. And not having to turn up hours before we play is always a bonus too, as it tends to put us in a good mood.
So while we rarely have a bad gig, sometimes they do have an extra bit of magic. This one certainly did.
We hope we get invited back.
We didn’t have time to take pictures or any video so we have no souvenirs to share, but this is what we played.
Chinatown
Guns Of Navarone
Latin Goes Ska
Mood For Love
Tide Is High
Harder They Come
Alley Cat Ska
Man In The Street
Mambo No. 5
Dr Who
Enola Gay
Red Red Wine
Price Tag
Pata Pata
Tainted Love
My Boy Lollipop
Night Boat To Cairo
Gangsters
Baggy Trousers (unplanned extra encore!)
Update: Thanks to Jim who sent us this photo after the gig.
Last night we went to Basildon – or more accurately Pitsea – to play a private function.
Here’s a clue to its purpose.
This was a full-on ska party with decoration to match.
And there were lots of cakes.
Here are some pictures from the soundcheck, but we didn’t get the chance to get anyone to take us while we performed.
We were asked to play Mirror in the Bathroom, Tears of a Clown and Red is Danger.
We’ve never done Mirror in the Bathroom before and had played Tears of a Clown only once before many years ago (and not very well). So some frantic arranging and rehearsing went on to get them up to scratch.
We hadn’t played Red is Danger for some time either. It goes back to the very early days of the band.We enjoyed reviving this. It will get some more outings now.
We also added One Step Beyond to our repertoire as it’s the right kind of tune to start this kind of evening as we mean to go on.
This is what we played.
First set
Second set
One Step Beyond
Guns Of Navarone
Tide Is High
Mood For Love
You’re Wondering Now
You Can Get It
Harder They Come
Red Is Danger
Man In The Street
Mirror In The Bathroom
Enola Gay
Red Red Wine
Price Tag
Tequila
Misirlou
99 Red Balloons
Tainted Love
Tears Of A Clown
Rudy A Message To You
My Boy Lollipop
Monkey Man
Baggy Trousers
Israelites
Gangsters
Night Boat To Cairo
Chinatown
And this is what the client had to say afterwards.
“What can i say???? U guys were absolutely amazing. Everyone has been saying how bloody brilliant u were. I can still hear the music through my hangover. Thank u so much for making it such a great night xxxxx”
Dumplins Live ska is a monthly night at the Fiddler’s Elbow close to Chalk Farm in Camden.
It is probably our favourite gig.
The crowd enjoy their ska, and are happy to hear rarities and new stuff as well as the old favourites. There is always great sound – both out front and on stage.
There’s no sense of their being a support and headliner – both bands get the same time and equal billing.
We were very happy to play there at the beginning of August (though holidays have intervened to stop a write-up until now).
Thanks to Michelle we have some great pictures from the night, some of which are below.
We thought that we were on particularly good form, and certainly got a great audience response. It was also good to share a bill with the Estimators , who love their traditional ska as much as we do.
This is what we played – the first time we have played Doctor Who live for a long time.
Holidays have intervened to delay a report of a great wedding gig that we played at the end of July in Birchington, near to Margate in Kent for Rebecca and Alex.
We played at the historic Quex House,which has lovely grounds. Best of all , there were fireworks during the break between our two sets.
We didn’t take any photos, but everyone seemed to have a good time.
This was one of the many recent gigs where we were lucky to have Rachel Musson guesting on saxophone, and also featured the mighty Joe Ospalla on drums.
Just after a week after our benefit at Northwick Park Hospital we were back in action for our first wedding gig of the year for Martin and Martha.
This was at the Blackheath Halls – a splendid if reverberant venue – and we had great sound provided.
This is what we played – the first time we’ve ever done Red, Red Wine.
First set
I’m in the Mood For Love
The Tide is High
Guns of Navarone
Chinatown
Latin Goes Ska
You’re Wondering Now
The Harder They Come
Alley Cat Ska
Mambo Number 5
Can’t Get You Out of my Head
Enola Gay
Red Red Wine
Price Tag
Tequila
Second set
James Bond
Johnny Too Bad
Misirlou
Pata Pata
Ten out of Ten
99 Red Balloons
Tainted Love
Rudy A Message To You
My Boy Lollipop
Monkey Man
Baggy Trousers
Israelites
Night Boat To Cairo
Gangsters
We were not able to grab many pictures when we were playing – though if any guests want to share we’d love to see them. But here are a few of the set-up and while we played..
We had a lot of fun playing the Cray community festival yesterday. The sun had got his hat on, there was a good sound system and an appreciative audience. If we did cliches, this is where we would say ‘what’s not to like?’.
Well, perhaps we would have liked to play for a little longer as we only had time for a relatively short set:
Guns of Navarone
My Boy Lollipop
Price Tag
99 Red Balloons
Tainted Love
Rudy, A message to you
Gangsters
Leah enjoys an ice cream before our set
We’ve got hold of some very lofi video of our performance. The quality is pretty poor, and the camera gets jolted a few times.
But you can see that we were having a good time, and even through the rubbish sound quality, you can tell it was a tight performance. It’s not going in our official video collection though.
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This was one of our two horn gigs – something we do when there are short sets and someone can’t make it. But there will definitialy be three horns at our next gig.
