Happy New Year!

For our last gig of 2006 myself and the long-suffering Shirley decided to treat ourselves to a night away (life in the fast lane eh?) in Lincoln- just outside it anyway, Thorpe-on-the-Hill to be precise where we're playing at Jocasta's which I think is a kind of mobile events company which puts up varying sized marquees as and when required 'though we were playing at their 'home' site. My toothache, which had started sometime before Christmas, was by now reaching epic proportions and the world swearing record is probably mine... that said the journey there was livened up no end when we spotted a new shop on the A1- the 'Adult Pit Stop' which I guess is a sex shop. (we didn't visit it, honest!) I'd have thought that 'just South of the Black Cat roundabout on the A1' would be a strange address at the best of times although I suppose it's handy if you're arranging to meet someone you've just been talking to on the internet? The mind boggles. Well, mine does anyway.
After booking into our Travelodge and a quick bite to eat (ouch!) it's down to the venue for a soundcheck/rehearsal. Joining the usual suspects (myself, Squirrel on bass, John on drums, Gary on keys and sole horn player Andy on sax) tonight are C.J. and Austin as the Blues Bros. I've worked a fair bit with Austin in his duo Liquid and the two of them have done a couple of shows with us before but as we're playing for 2 hours in total we need to play pretty much everything that we can think of so we run through some rarely performed songs- 'Take me to the River'. 'Hard to Handle' etc. We're playing 2 sets, 10.30-11.30pm then after the fireworks (if it stops raining) from 1-2am. A long night, but should be fun if the audience is up for it... which it turns out they are, with plenty of dancing from the word go and the band playing well, though by the second set I'm reduced to taking painkillers on stage which probably looked very 'rock'n'roll' but actually felt anything but... washing them down with lager may have been a mistake though, as I discovered when I went to play the intro to 'Sweet Home Chicago' and found that I couldn't remember it!
3.15am and we're back at the Travelodge. The manager's come out to see who's arriving so late. He likes a chat, mostly about hotels. Then again, I suppose he would.

Happy new year- see you somewhere, sometime in 2007.