Wolverhampton Wanderers vs. Denham United

Two very different shows this weekend-

Friday it was off to the Black Country for a CBB show at Andy's 30th birthday party at Brookfield Farm near Wolverhampton. With Richard flying in from a gig in France with Martha Reeves (lucky lad!) myself and the long suffering Shirley were traveling up with Tracy- sadly traffic conspired against her meaning that she was something approaching 2 hours late meeting up with us, resulting in a will-we-make-it-time-for-the-gig race against time. Thankfully luck was on our side and we had a clear run until only a few miles from the venue- at which point our sat. nav. sent us in completely the wrong direction and we had to call for help. 'It's got a big white sign outside saying STUD FARM' offered Matt helpfully- well we'd definitely have noticed that, so we were definitely lost. Eventually a young lady who worked at the venue talked us in on the phone, and we arrived at about the same time as the first guests- rarely a good sign if you're in the band... after a quick (very quick!) set up there was time to sample the buffet before throwing ourselves at a 90 minute set at the rather early hour of 8.15; sadly it was one of those shows where the guitar seems to feel heavier than it normally does, and where try as we might we couldn't get through to the audience. Maybe they were more interested in the upcoming karaoke, or maybe we were just on a bit too early- who knows? We left for home less than 4 hours after we'd arrived- it was that kind of night...

On the other hand- Saturday saw the first PTX gig for some time, at Buckinghamshire Golf Club in Denham at a halloween party that's also a birthday bash for my mate Cliff- that's how a bunch of herberts like us came to be playing at it! The Pete Tobit Experience is, shall we say, a loose gathering based around Pete and whatever song he decides to sing that night (!) and soundcheck saw us running through a few songs that we'd not played before (it normally does!) as well as discussing which songs from the CBB theatre show could be corrupted to suit our needs as a 5 piece. Pete's on vocals and acoustic guitar with Squirrel and Marc on bass and drums and Ian on keyboards; he'd missed the previous night's gig as he'd been playing in The Kast Off Kinks (Chris depped for him) and, odd as it may seem, he ended up on stage with one of his band mates at this gig too... in total contrast to the previous night's show this one saw the audience ready to rock more-or-less from the word go- our first set was mostly songs from the theatre show whilst the second saw us reaching into somewhat less familiar territory, not least when Mick Avory joined us to sing 'Dedicated Follower Of Fashion'- he was a guest at the party and performs the song with The Kast Off Kinks, and Ian suggested he did it with us. Excellent! In the meantime 6 foot tall women dressed as fairies mingled with men who looked as though they should have been in 'The Long Good Friday', and by the time Big Tel and Dave wound up the disco at one o'clock it had definitely been a good night all round.

Time for a quick advert- this coming Sunday (the 8th if you're counting) Attila The Stockbroker visits The Load of Hay in Uxbridge. It should be a great night!