Overboard at The Borderline!

Well, did we have a good time! But first, let me tell you the saga of The Bus! When we were first booked to do The Borderline, we decided we were really going to relax and enjoy it. So we booked a 16 seater with a trailer for the double-bass. However, when we went to check it all out, it was clear that Simon’s beautiful instrument with its walk-in wardrobe would never fit in the trailer. So we booked a 25 seater and reserved the back seats for it. Then, on Saturday morning , bang on midday as arranged , this huge green monster pulled up outside our house. A full 50 seater tour bus! We could have fitted the London Philharmonic on it let alone Simon’s double-bass! Talk about travelling in style! It turned out that the small bus had been delayed in France and this is all they had left. But lucky us. It all turned out for the best.We were looked after fantastically well be the driver George and his lovely wife Jenny. And they came to our gig. And they bought a Cd. And they’re coming to our next one. So thank you Roadliner for fabulous service. And as we’ve been asked by The Borderline to do another slot early next year, we’ll be booking another bus! But, I’ve got ahead of myself. We had a great drive up. Claire reckoned that as the bus interior was all purple, this was a sign we were going to have a good gig. (Those of you who’ve seen State of Undress will understand the significance of this … Claire only wears lilacs and purple!) We took a picnic, flasks of coffee; and beer and wine for the return journey. Unfortunately, most of the beer and wine never made it as far as London but got consumed en route! Anyone who saw my nephew Alex (fab House Music DJ) running with legs crossed all round New Scotland Yard looking for a place to pee whilst the bus was stuck in traffic will know who drank most of it! Anyway, we arrived at 4.30pm for a sound check; met Barb Waters and Cyndi Boste; met a Swedish band called Laserville with a lead singer who was like a blonde Bono – all passion , charisma and trouser thrusts! – and went on stage at 8.00pm. In the audience there were some college friends of ours that we hadn’t seen for about 5 years or more – Nick Heath and his partner, Chris; Dan Tweed and his son Tom –which really made our evening and all in all our set went down pretty damned well. We had calls for ‘More!’ and they weren’t even from voices we recognised! My sister sold some CDs for us – as Dan Tweed said ‘ The secret of success in the music industry is having a pushy sister!’ (Love ya, Georgie!) – and on the strength of our CD sales, we went out for a curry! The wonderful George drove us all safely back home and then Penny, Claire, Steve , Alan and me stayed up eating Penny’s chocolate brownies, drinking coffee and watching the video that Lloyd had taken. Oh what a night! (Hmm could be a good title for a song!) This is our version of events ….
To find out what really happened, pick up a copy of The Last Word Magazine (www.thelastwordmagazine.com) available free from places like H2O, The Thomas Tripp etc) that comes out on 12th December. Two of their intrepid reporters Sarah Swailes and Jessica came on the bus with us to catch our set at The Borderline. You can read what they thought in the December issue. Can’t be all bad though …they’re going clubbing with our violinist this weekend…Be warned Bournemouth!!

Green, Blue and Borderline!

Uh oh! Blog time again! I’ve got a bit behind actually because we’ve had a couple of cracking evenings recently. First of all at The Green Room at the Portman Hotel last week. Fabulous night once again. A great audience ( well, my sister was in it so it had to be!) and the sound was terrific. Thanks to Lee of The Portman for that. I don’t know about this line-up though … back to ours again – raided the kids’ maltesers stash; and then their chicken goujons and Tesco’s frozen sausages! Well I thought I’d done quite well to find that lot at 2 o’clock in the morning! Then last night we were at The Blue Boar Roots Club at Market Close Poole. This club, run by Alan Williamson (01202 463646) is just great. A really atmospheric venue and a lovely responsive, listening audience which included excellent singer songwiter Pete Christie (if you haven’t heard this guy you really need to get along to one of his gigs – www.petechristie.co.uk) and also Barry one of the percussionists with absolutely fantabulous Latin American band Djambo.(catch them the last Sunday of every month at Shenanigans, Portman Hotel, Boscombe). We did the same set we are planning to do at The Borderline this Saturday - a sort of live dress rehersal to check the running order worked and so on. And it did. So we are all ready now! We were very restrained post-gig though because Alan had to get up really early for a meeting in Reading (it’s tough having to work for a living!) and Penny had her driving test at 8.40 in the morning. What’s more … she PASSED!! Great. She can drive me to gigs now! So, the bus is all booked. We had to go for a larger one because the double bass wouldn’t fit in the trailer of the 16-seater. It can now have several seats and a table all to itself! We’re packing a picnic and coffee for the journey up; and wine and beer for the journey back … we’ll be celebrating or commiserating … either way we’ll need some liquid refreshment. Hey big city …here we come! Hope to see you there!