Johnny's 21st Birthday bash
9th September 2006
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Barn dance Boogie
Ho Down in the hills

It's not often that I do private parties, ( I'm not exactly what you'd call general background music ) but this one off was for Johnny ( one of the Riff Raff Crew )
and as a lot of the good people attending were " under suspicion " of having attended numerous Mr Riff gigs I felt I may getaway without being asked to do the birdie song all night for drunken party revelers.

I knew from the start it was going to be an "interesting gig" from the moment we arrived .....to find there was a power cut.
Still the're a hardy bunch up in regaby, and it wasn't long before enough generators to run a small country had been " acquired " (you know I must stop using speech marks) and brackets for that matter.

So with all the sounds sorted we were off........and so were the lights!
As the sun had long since buggered off to bed it beginning to look like we were going to do a very touchy feely gig.
"Someone find a spare socket" went the cry....and it went out in speach marks and italics. Hey! we were desperate.

And lo there was....fairy lights. Actually it worked, we had strings of lights and straw bales, we had ourselves a ho down.
The party was a laugh, everyone got completely hammered and danced like your dad,
and I got the chance to air a couple of new tunes.
"Little Groover" and spookily "Country Girl"

The hosts had laid on food for the hundred or so people by getting a chippy van to turn up during the night. This in turn led to the unique experience of getting halfway through the first set to suddenly find the audience all sneaking off when the chippy van arrived. Ha,ha, the die hards were still watching me, but looking enviously at everyone else getting fed for free.
Now I've been asked some strange requests during the years I've been doing this mad gigging lark., but I have to admit to being truly moved when a hand raised from the crowd that were left and I was asked "Can you take a break, I don't want to miss any tunes, but I've had no tea."
We adjourned for supper.

When Boogie resumed it was a much relaxed and chilled out affair. A hundred people full of fish and chips is not a good recipe for bouncing, he,he.
It was nice to play some laid back blues and I'm glad I was playing because now full of grub and beer, those straw bales sure looked comfortable. I think if I'd stopped I'd have drifted off to a restful slumber.

Within an hour or so everyone was full of energy ( and carlsberg ) and ready to
rock 'n' roll. So we did.............then we didn't.
The generators all stopped. Doh!
Now we really were acoustic. Everyone moved in close and I carried on.
Thinking 'bout it now I should have played 'Shine a light', but that would have been too corny.
So we did the tunes in an intimate setting, up close and personal, so to speak,
actually close is an understatement. I should have let everyone else play the guitar, they were closer to it than me.
The quiet was unearthly, crystal, you could hear.. just the soft strumming of the guitar.....
Then the dropping of drinks and loosening of bowls as 3000 watts of PA unexpectedly came back on.

As the night became morning and tired party goers began to slope off to find dark recesses to place their heads, ( ooh err ) it was time to throw everything in the van
( I must return the lawn chairs ) and head back on home.

Definitely a 21st that Johnny will remember for a while. Happy Birthday mate.