Monday, August 28, 2006

Please allow me to introduce myself...

Hello, and welcome to Leigh's mad world of guitars in which your humble narrator and his beloved instruments attempt to make sense of the situations they find themselves in. Hopefully it'll be of interest to you, and to me...

I've been meaning to do this for ages. Have a blog that is. The main reason I've not done so is simple- I'm not very good at typing, so it takes me ages to put even a simple e-mail together. Well, I think it does, though I guess it depends what you take the word 'ages' to mean; in geological terms I'm a pretty quick worker whereas in the real world... anyway as we'll discover the real world doesn't trouble me too often.
This weekend saw 3 gigs, all good fun for different reasons. Friday we were at the Manor Hotel in Datchet playing at Clive and Sam's wedding. Clive comes to me for guitar lessons and asked me if I could put a band together for the occasion; 'no problem' I thought, without thinking... to cut a long story short it all turned out rather well (I wouldn't be telling the story if it hadn't!) with the impulsively named 'Pete Tobit Experience' bringing the house, or should I say tent, down. In addition to P.T. himself on vocals & acoustic guitars the band featured John Sorrell a.k.a. Johnny Squirrel on bass, John Skelton on drums and Gary Mobeley on keyboards, all of whom have had prior musical journeys that far outstrip mine in terms of interest and achievement but this is a good chance to introduce them to you, the reader of this blog.
Saturday we were in Ross-on-Wye doing what we normally do- 'Sweet Home Chicago', a Blues Brothers theatre show (we're sometimes The Bootleg Blues Brothers on non-theatre shows)although this was the 'Summer Sound Spectacular', an outdoor show in the local park. New father Michael Lawrence (I still think Iggy is a nice name don't you?) joined Pete in the suit and glasses (he's got his own, him and Pete don't share) while Tracy Graham was on vocals for the Aretha Franklin tunes and the horn section featured Richard Pardy on Sax and Steve I-can't-remember-his-surname-'cos-it's-been-ages-since-he-last-played-with-us on trumpet. Again these people are much more interesting than me, as you'll discover in subsequent postings. A good gig with the weather holding off for once.
Sunday the PT Exp hit Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire at the Bull & Butcher pub run by Richard & Pat. Another tent, this time in the car park and another successful night.
If you're thinking none of this sounds too 'mad' I should point out that I've left a lot out. I thought it was more important to get some names named and set the scene for future stories- after all there's plenty or time to let you know which one of the band dropped his pants with the words 'Welcome to Australia' another time. Probably.