Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Reasons To Be Cheerful
by Russell Turner - 11:19 on 13 November 2016
It’s not been a good week: Trump in the Whitehouse and The Man From UNCLE dead (although Leonard Cohen’s demise caused more upset for Matchgirl than that of Napoleon Solo). So I’d been looking forward to Friday night’s gig when the four members of City Limits were to play together after almost two months of stand-ins and City Limits Lite.
It was not to be. Jenna was taken ill (not seriously) a few hours before our appearance at Jacko’s Bar in Nairn, so it was the trio that set up while a modest crowd of increasingly dismayed fans watched Scotland get beaten 3-0 by England. Even gratis half-time pies, provided for the punters by management, didn’t lift their spirits. The prospects for an exciting gig didn’t look good.
We started, around 9.45, with Marley’s Three Little Birds, wondering if its refrain of “Every little thing’s gonna be all right” would get us bottled off the stage, but the by-now-even-smaller crowd took it well, especially as we followed up with lots rock and blues, played without a break (we didn’t want to risk more departures) until the 12.15 finish time.
Most gratifying was the small group of mature football fans who’d intended to leave after the match but stayed all night, keen to hear which of their favourites would pop up next. Need Your Love So Bad went down particularly well. We even threw in a couple of songs that we knew individually but had never played together – Paranoid and Kiss (by Prince, but boogied up by us). Both worked surprisingly well, unlike the intro to Led Zep’s Rock and Roll – some practice needed there.
The management was happy, the crowd was happier than it had been three hours earlier, and so were we. But hopefully Jenna will be recovered in time for next weekend’s double date at Johnny Foxes – Keith’s voice might not last for both gigs.
There’s even more to look forward to: A Street Cat Named Bob is in the cinemas, although we’ll have to wait until after Matchgirl’s latest Shetland jaunt to see it. If you’ve not read the books, get them now.
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