Who are you?

Early Friday afternoon in the shop and I'm flagging a bit- we got back to South Mimms service station to meet up with the long-suffering Shirley around 2a.m. which meant a rather bleary start to the day. Still I've got the wonderful new Ramones dvd 'It's Alive!' on the player and have had just about enough coffee to contemplate re-stringing an acoustic guitar that's been bought in for a service when in walks Tom the Yamaha rep. He looks rather smarter than usual, in a suit rather than a Yamaha t-shirt but is as friendly as ever, looking around the shop while I serve a customer or 2. He remarks that we've got 'plenty of our stuff over in the corner there'- which confuses me a bit since there's not a piece of Yamaha equipment in sight. I decide I'm more tired than I thought I was- until, eventually and amid much amusement, he says something like 'I don't work for Yamaha anymore, I work for Stentor now'. Ah, that explains it. Sort of. It also goes some way towards completing the jigsaw which began earlier in the week when Nick the Stentor rep came in- except he wasn't Nick from Stentor anymore, he's now Nick from GoTo Guitars. Ok-all that remains now is to meet someone in a Yamaha t-shirt and equilibrium is re-established. I think.

Anyway after the shop it's off to The Radlett Centre in (you've guessed it!) Radlett for another BB's gig. Pete's got his wife Jayne along to help with his costume changes and, with Tracy joining us on vocals, it's the 'full' show with even more songs for Keith to contend with. I missed the sound check so set up my guitar and amp in record time before myself and Shirley wandered off down the High Street in search of food. Back at the theatre and it's time for a drink before the show- in the bar there's poster for an upcoming T.Rextasy show; I wonder how John Skelton's getting on with them, I must give him a call this week... and there's a visit from former band driver/fixer-upper Bob Newcombe who I hadn't seen since, I think, last year at our pre-Christmas show in Rochford town centre. Great to see him- it reminded me how easy it is to be lazy and not stay in touch with people. The show goes well with Tracy's songs going down almost as well as Pete's increasingly over-the-top characters (I'll not say too much here in case you come along to a show- suffice to that there is an amount of female impersonation involved...).

Time to go time and we're in one of the dressing rooms with Tracy who we're giving a lift home. She finds, of all things, a pair of underpants on the floor in the corner. In a moment of madness she picks them up- and some of those little silverfish run out. Goodnight Radlett.