Oh, what a night!

Sunday morning and only just recovering from an absolutely superb night on Friday at the charity gig for the Motor Neurone Disease Association at Hoburne Park , Highcliffe organised with Mel and Danny Broomfield. What a fabulous, fun evening! The place was packed. The event was completely sold out to the extent that the Manager was turning people away at the door! I think the story of Steve and Danny's friendship just captured everyone and we all wanted to be part of such a special evening. As well as live music from us, there was a mega raffle with some great, great prizes - anyone know who won the three-foot radio controlled car?? - face painting and arts and crafts for younger children with Boscombe Community Fair (big thanks to Venita and Sam and co); nail art with Jackie from Tip to Toe; a tombola and just fun, food and festivities all round. A lovely highlight of the evening was The Sweet Angels. Five little girls came up and said that with the help of Boscombe Community Fair they'd written a song that evening which they'd like to perform. Not only had they written it, they'd structured it; worked out four part harmony; a rhythm which young Holly played on Keith's congas; and even choreographed it. I tell you, they were a hard act to follow! Hmmm - I could be out of a job! We played a couple of new songs which we'd tried out as a dress rehearsal at The Tudor Rose the previous weekend (we had a terrific time there too - we had a real party going on!) These were a little bit special. One was an old rock n roll number 'Sweet Little Lisa' which Steve and Danny used to play many years ago when they were in their first band together; and a new bluesy one written by Steve called Skyla Malinch which he dedicated to Mel. This is a track on his album 'This Way Up' which he produced himself and sold with all proceeds to the MNDA. He's made an amazing £500.oo for the charity from his album sales.We also did a sort of punk/latin version of the Dolly Parton classic 'Jolene' with Keith doing some absolutely stonking congas and d'you know what? It really works! Two songs before the end Danny and Mel came up and thanked everyone and were met with enthusiastic, warm cheers and applause. Most of the second set people were up and dancing and jigging and playing percussion - Steve and Paula even brought their own tambourines - well done, guys! - and it was just great being up on stage and seeing everyone having such a good time. Thanks Danny and Mel for giving us the opportunity to play to such a fab audience.
I'd just like to finish this blog by saying a thank you to everyone who made this event such a roaring success: Hoburne Park for donating the premises; Wayne Clarke Entertainments Manager there, and all his stff for their help especially Lee and Mike the Chef; PP Printing for donating the printing of posters, flyers and tickets; all the companies who so generously donated raffle prizes; the media for their wonderful publicity; Boscombe Community Fair and Tip to Toe for running activities on the night; the audience adults and children; and finally Mel and Dan for inspiring it and being the driving force behind it. When's the next one??!

A little word about the apres-gig....it was such a fab evening we didn't want it to end so a few stalwarts and die hards with more stamina than sense came back to ours for a glass of wine or three and a raid of the freezer! We kept going until 4.45am - that's not bad .We had several bodies lying around until 11.00am when my mum arrived with a thousand packs of bacon and some fresh baked bread and it was bacon sarnies all round. Now that's what I call a great gig!

We're at O'Neills in Bournemouth on Thursday 16th and Inn on the Beach, Hayling Island on Friday 17th - hope to see you there.

Love
Charlie x