We played our Christmas gig last Saturday night with Frank’s other (and loud) band the Electric Cucumbers.
We had a lot of fun, but not a lot of luck recording or videoing it. Last time we played at the Sebright we were able to grab some pretty good video and sound – but not this time. We had fewer cameras, and the battery ran out straight away on one. the sound of the desk did not work as well as last time – although it was fine in the room.
So while we will put up some recordings, they will be filed under our dodgy live recording strand. A bit better than someone’s mobile, but not much.
Here’s Night Boat to Cairo shot from the single camera still working, and with most of the band invisible!
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This is what we played
Guns of Navarone
Latin goes ska
Skambo number five
Work song – a new vocal version
Price tag
James Bond
10 out of 10
Tainted Love
Rudy
My boy Lollipop
Baggy Trousers
Night Boat to Cairo
Gangsters
Merry Christmas Everybody – our ska cover of the Slade Christmas song
We had fun playing the Ritzy in Brixton last week.
So did the audience from the amount of dancing that went on.
We played our version of Chariots of Fire – which of course is now Chariots of Ska – for the first time – and revived our version of Dr Who which we haven’t played for ages.
This is what I think we played. And there are some photos below.
We had a terrible journey to what turned out to be a great gig near Dorchester in Dorset.
It was lucky that we had all set out in good time, as a combination of torrential rain, and endless bank holiday traffic hold ups meant that it wook hours longed than we expected to get there.
However once we were there it quickly became an immensely enjoyable evening.
The reception was in a giant tent constructed from two tipis. We had enough time to set our equipment up and sound-check.
We were also able to provide our PA for the wedding speeches and to use for the first dance and disco parts of the evening – courtesy of the groom’s ipod.
Most exciting for us was the debut of Nick’s new blue plastic trombone.
Astonishingly it sounds pretty indistinguishable from a traditional brass instrument. But it’s a shame you can’t get them in a 2-tone black and white check pattern.
This is what we played. One highlight was one of the guests proving to be an accomplished rapper to Skaravan. Whether Duke Ellington would have approved is another matter …
We had a fantastic time playing at Round Midnight a couple of weeks ago. We just haven’t had the chance to share before due to holidays.
We think this was one of our best ever gigs. It was certainly one of our longest at about two and a half hours of music.
This is what we played – though not quite in the order below as we swapped a few things around.
First set
Second set
Chinatown
Guns of Navarone
Latin goes ska
Double barrel
Mood for love
You’re wondering now
Eastern standard time
Alley cat ska
Man in the street
Mambo number 5
Fly me to the moon
Can’t get you out …
Enola gay
Price tag
James bond
Work song
Skaravan
Tiptoe
10 out of 10
99 red balloons
Tainted love
Rudy a message to you
Tequila
My boy lollipop
Monkey man
Baggy trousers
Israelites
Night boat to Cairo
Gangsters
Chinatown
It was the first time that we have ever played Mambo Number Five – one of the key hits in the 1960s mambo craze from Perez Prado. Most people are now much more familiar with the Lou Bega song, but we went back to the original instrumental for our instrumental version.
There’s a short video of Gangsters that Round Midnight uploaded to Facebook. You can see that on our Facebook page.
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