A Legendary Weekend!

Friday night found us out in the Dorset wilds at an amazing pub The Square and Compass at Lychett Matravers. This place is literally out of this world - a clifftop location with jurassic rocks to sit on in the garden and a room devoted to dinosaur and fossil finds from the beach below. It's been in the same family for hundreds of years and I swear nothing has changed. It really is stopped in time and quite magical with it. No bar - just a serving hatch. And you can have real ale or cider - no bottled stuff and certainly no lager. And if you're hungry - it's pie or pasty - home made and delicious. People travel from all over to visit this pub and bands on tour from the States and Europe come to play here. We squeezed our vehicles on to the front and unloaded most of the gear through the pub window. We were playing in the large bar - so-called because it's not quite as small as the small bar! The place was packed and we just had the most amazing night. The most responsive audience you could imagine. They listened rapt to our mellow songs and danced wildly to our foot-tapping ones. They absolutely loved our new songs The Hangman's Daughter, Malcolm's quirky song Rock It! and a new Waterboy's cover 'Everyone Takes a Tumble' all of which fairly took the roof off the place. The musicianship from the guys - Alan, Jerry, Malcolm and Keith - was just stunning. We had to do three encores including 'Spellbound' in which everyone hugged or linked arms and swayed along gently to the music and then, by special request and as our lovely friend Robbo had missed it the first time round, we repeated 'Everyone Takes a Tumble' with everyone joining in the chorus. It was just brilliant. We emptied everything out through the window again and drove home through a soft jurassic mist that clung round everything. Just a fantastic night. Following day we went off to Collingbourne Ducis in Malcolm's new van. We couldn't believe it. It didn't rattle like the old red transit, there was no black smoke coming out of the exhaust, and we could all hear ourselves speak. We've really gone up in the world! We played for the 25th Anniversary Celebrations for the founding of the Village Hall. We had a few sound problems to start with and then there were breaks for the barbeque and the raffle so it was a more challenging gig for us. But halfway through the second set we felt we were getting there; and a storming third set had everyone up and dancing and shaking their eggs! We then drove to Marlborough to stay with friends that we hadn't seen for ages. Well, Mark had bought enough beer and wine to sink a battleship - he'd obviously heard of us by reputation - and it would have been rude to refuse such dazzling hospitality and besides we had at least 10 years of gossip to catch up on so we stayed up til 5.00 in the morning! But true professionals that we are, we were up by 9. Frigs, the heroine, had cooked breakfast for us all and by 11.30 we were in Malcolm's smart new van on our way to Wales to play at the Pontardawe Festival near Swansea. We left Marlborough in lovely sunshine and arrived at the Festival to find everyone in Wellies having endured 4 days of torrential rain. I spent the rest of the festival barefoot ankle deep in mud. You'd pay an obscene amount of money for a natural beauty treatment like that! The weather hadn't dampened the atmosphere though and we had a fabulous time playing to a warm Welsh welcome. The festival organisers looked after us really well too - with a Green Room for the artists with lovely drinks and snacks laid on and they were generous with the beer tokens too! Once again, we had a brilliant response from the audience and then, once the festival had closed, we played a further set for the organisers, stewards, volunteers and exhibitors. We then stayed on and partied with them all - so much for our plans of an early night to catch up on the one before! By this time, the torrential rain had returned so we had to walk back to our host's house (young Ton looked after us splendidly!) in very uncool, unrock n roll fashion, wrapped in sleeping bags and carrier bags and anything else we could find. Well, come on, it's August, it's summer. We weren't prepared for rain! I know - it's a festival; it's Wales; we should have known to take snorkel and flippers!
We'd just like to thank everyone from the whole weekend for giving us such a great time and making us feel so special and welcome wherever we've been. A weekend that will pass into State of Undress legend!

Brolly anyone?
Charlie
State of Undress
www.stateofundress.com

Midlands Music Magic and Mayhem !

So we had bid a fond farewell to our lovely Samantha Jane at the end of July.She is moving on to pastures new. We were so lucky to have her with us for the past four and a half years and shall miss her. But now it's the beginning of August and we have just done our first three gigs with our new fiddler, Jerry Bird. Now, he may not be as pretty as Sam but he does play some very fine fiddle! It was definitely straight in at the deep end. We had three gigs in the Midlands starting off with a four hour journey because it's holiday time and it was a Friday and we left at half past three! We won't dwell on our first gig - a big town centre pub, with no decent beer and a crowd of youngsters out on the pull! We played well and it gave us chance to see which bits of the set needed tweaking but, admittedly, not the most auspicious start. The second night we were at the fabulous Katie Fitzgeralds in Stourbridge. When we were there last autumn we played in the bar upstairs. And had a great night. This time, we played in their Cellar Bar downstairs with a proper stage, lighting and PA and we had an even better night! Liz, Malcolm's wife and our Web Master, was on hand to take loads of photos and just generally help out. She was brilliant! There was definitely something in the air - the guys were just electrifying with their music making and we fairly took the roof off the place! The atmosphere was terrific and the audience were just so responsive. We returned to the 'Best Hotel in the Midlands' (my aunt and uncle's home) where they'd been waiting up for us ( How old are we???) and we ate bread and cheese and gammon ham and drank copious amounts of wine til 4 in the morning - it had just been too good an evening to go to bed any sooner! Amazingly, Malcolm, the hero, was the first one up the next morning and cooked mega-breakfast for us all to fortify us for the afternoon ahead. We were off to one of our favourite gigs, The Fox and Hounds in Wroughton. The weather was glorious so we were able to play in their lovely garden. Our lovely friends Tony and Angela had come all the way from Cadnam to see us and to welcome Jerry. As always, the audience there was fabulous. A few of them (fellas mostly!) were very disappointed that Sam was no longer with us, but Jerry soon won them over with his playing - well, most of them: One went home with a broken heart! We had a lovely crowd at the front who joined in with great gusto. One of their party, an amazing lady whose son was just about to return to Afghanistan on his 7th tour of duty, asked us to dedicate a song to all the boys and girls out there. We did better than that. We passed the hat round and donated money from album sales and raised £132.30 for Help for Heroes! What a brilliant, generous audience. It took us ages to pack up. Well, there were just so many people to chat to, and hug and kiss - networking I call it. Poncing about and skiving off is what the rest of the band call it! Anyway, all in all, a very good weekend!
Happy summer wishes to one and all.

Charlie xx
State of Undress
www.stateofundress.com