![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
We all came down to Dunsfold....Part 1
Dec. 13th, 2009 03:48 pmIn the Waverly district of Surrey.
It was the function band's last gig of the year: a wedding. Very large marquee in the garden immediately beside the house, which was also large, rambling, and with the added attraction of some eighteenth century features.
SWMBO had departed for Cambridge and mother-visiting. I was due to travel to either Cambridge or St Neot's sometime on the Sunday morning, depending on what time I got in from the gig.
Martin (drummer), Mark (bassist), and I, each in our respective cars, gathered at the gig at sometime after 3.30pm, set up and soundchecked by 5pm. We were given a room in the main house to change in and, as the saying is, recreate. The nice female housekeeper made us tea and coffee, and the three of us got stuck into the sandwiches and crisps she forced upon us. We watched telly and stuffed ourselves until Jane and Frankie (the singers) arrived at about 6.30pm. Simon (keyboards + some guitar on a few numbers) soon after.
Due onstage for the first set at 9-ish. Supper served to us at 8.00. At 8.10 our deputising Sax player, a South African lass called Louise arrived, and sat down to food. 15 minutes before our first set Jane realised she'd forgotten her book with all the lyrics and arrangements for the vocal parts.
Panic.
Rule one of function bands: Do not let the vocalists panic - they are fragile and apt to hyperventilate.
The great thing about being adults is we can normally find a way round problems: use makes master after all.
Martin asked the father of the bride (and the house's owner) if we could use his computer and we started downloading the lyrics to the unremembered songs in the first set. Frankie and Jane booked a cab to pick up the book and deliver it to possibly the most remote place in Surrey, which ain't really saying much, but Dunsfold is a mediæval village with hardly a proper road, and the large house was really not too accessible by car, and there is no street lighting or signs to inform a driver just exactly where they may be. Bliss. Onstage somewhat late...at about 9.20pm. First number is the bride and grooms request: Iris by the Goo-goo dolls. Then we have to improvise a set-order to accommodate the fact that some songs are lyrical terra incognita. Even so, it's going pretty well. Frankie bumps and grinds like Henry VIIIth fronting Fat Larry's Band. Lots of dancing is going on. Folk are enjoying themselves. I'm a little less than pleased at some of my phrasing in one or two of the many breaks I'm given, but we're all coping pretty well.
We finish the off-the-cuff first set at 10.20pm and Frankie and Mark are sent to the road to see if they can spot the taxi carrying the book....in the pitch dark. It's a bloody cold December night.
Taxi paid off to the tune of £70. Book in hand. Arrangements and lyrics assembled we're back on stage after only 15 minutes ready to party on down until midnight. I'm expecting my hands to start cramping. Quite a demanding second set. We must have been onstage for 45 minutes and were one verse in to 'Car Wash' (I know....but it's a dance band) when the power went down.
Naturally we assumed that the bride and groom were leaving and someone had overzealously-like switched off the power. Hmm. A cappella finish to 'Car Wash' in as amusing a fashion as we can manage and then the cry goes up.
'Please vacate the marquee immediately in an orderly fashion: the marquee is on fire.' All the guests are pretty squiffy: it is 11.20 or so on the evening of a wedding. Ergo, everyone is quite relaxed and does not panic overly. Slightly chaotic evacuation of tent is managed. I grab my coat and my Number one Strat and leave everything else behind.
The fucking tent is burning down. Everyone evacuated from the house....all the kids etc; everyone out of the tent. Now this place in the back-of-beyond has little access for cars let alone fire engines. It is also, as has been mentioned, a bloody cold December night.
One hundred and twenty drunken party-goers lined the only access road for the fire engines. The band and PA guys had more than ten thousand quid's worth of kit onstage. This could all have been such a disaster....but actually we all muddled through, in some ways creating even more chaos as we tried to make temporary provision for circumstance.
The fire brigade eventually arrived. and put out the blaze quickly and efficiently. The stage area hadn't been touched. At about 1am we were allowed to reclaim out kit.
The main victim from the band's point of view, was Mark, the bassist. His coat, with his car keys and house keys, had been redistributed by someone else to some as yet unknown woman who was in danger of freezing to death in her rather skimpy evening wear. Mark had to go home with Martin, who like Simon, will be returning to pick up his kit today.
The bride though, was in tears; poor thing. And the bride's father looked a bit ashen-faced. I wish them well: they were nice to us. Fortune favour them in this time of adversity.
It was the function band's last gig of the year: a wedding. Very large marquee in the garden immediately beside the house, which was also large, rambling, and with the added attraction of some eighteenth century features.
SWMBO had departed for Cambridge and mother-visiting. I was due to travel to either Cambridge or St Neot's sometime on the Sunday morning, depending on what time I got in from the gig.
Martin (drummer), Mark (bassist), and I, each in our respective cars, gathered at the gig at sometime after 3.30pm, set up and soundchecked by 5pm. We were given a room in the main house to change in and, as the saying is, recreate. The nice female housekeeper made us tea and coffee, and the three of us got stuck into the sandwiches and crisps she forced upon us. We watched telly and stuffed ourselves until Jane and Frankie (the singers) arrived at about 6.30pm. Simon (keyboards + some guitar on a few numbers) soon after.
Due onstage for the first set at 9-ish. Supper served to us at 8.00. At 8.10 our deputising Sax player, a South African lass called Louise arrived, and sat down to food. 15 minutes before our first set Jane realised she'd forgotten her book with all the lyrics and arrangements for the vocal parts.
Panic.
Rule one of function bands: Do not let the vocalists panic - they are fragile and apt to hyperventilate.
The great thing about being adults is we can normally find a way round problems: use makes master after all.
Martin asked the father of the bride (and the house's owner) if we could use his computer and we started downloading the lyrics to the unremembered songs in the first set. Frankie and Jane booked a cab to pick up the book and deliver it to possibly the most remote place in Surrey, which ain't really saying much, but Dunsfold is a mediæval village with hardly a proper road, and the large house was really not too accessible by car, and there is no street lighting or signs to inform a driver just exactly where they may be. Bliss. Onstage somewhat late...at about 9.20pm. First number is the bride and grooms request: Iris by the Goo-goo dolls. Then we have to improvise a set-order to accommodate the fact that some songs are lyrical terra incognita. Even so, it's going pretty well. Frankie bumps and grinds like Henry VIIIth fronting Fat Larry's Band. Lots of dancing is going on. Folk are enjoying themselves. I'm a little less than pleased at some of my phrasing in one or two of the many breaks I'm given, but we're all coping pretty well.
We finish the off-the-cuff first set at 10.20pm and Frankie and Mark are sent to the road to see if they can spot the taxi carrying the book....in the pitch dark. It's a bloody cold December night.
Taxi paid off to the tune of £70. Book in hand. Arrangements and lyrics assembled we're back on stage after only 15 minutes ready to party on down until midnight. I'm expecting my hands to start cramping. Quite a demanding second set. We must have been onstage for 45 minutes and were one verse in to 'Car Wash' (I know....but it's a dance band) when the power went down.
Naturally we assumed that the bride and groom were leaving and someone had overzealously-like switched off the power. Hmm. A cappella finish to 'Car Wash' in as amusing a fashion as we can manage and then the cry goes up.
'Please vacate the marquee immediately in an orderly fashion: the marquee is on fire.' All the guests are pretty squiffy: it is 11.20 or so on the evening of a wedding. Ergo, everyone is quite relaxed and does not panic overly. Slightly chaotic evacuation of tent is managed. I grab my coat and my Number one Strat and leave everything else behind.
The fucking tent is burning down. Everyone evacuated from the house....all the kids etc; everyone out of the tent. Now this place in the back-of-beyond has little access for cars let alone fire engines. It is also, as has been mentioned, a bloody cold December night.
One hundred and twenty drunken party-goers lined the only access road for the fire engines. The band and PA guys had more than ten thousand quid's worth of kit onstage. This could all have been such a disaster....but actually we all muddled through, in some ways creating even more chaos as we tried to make temporary provision for circumstance.
The fire brigade eventually arrived. and put out the blaze quickly and efficiently. The stage area hadn't been touched. At about 1am we were allowed to reclaim out kit.
The main victim from the band's point of view, was Mark, the bassist. His coat, with his car keys and house keys, had been redistributed by someone else to some as yet unknown woman who was in danger of freezing to death in her rather skimpy evening wear. Mark had to go home with Martin, who like Simon, will be returning to pick up his kit today.
The bride though, was in tears; poor thing. And the bride's father looked a bit ashen-faced. I wish them well: they were nice to us. Fortune favour them in this time of adversity.
