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