Rich the engineer took a recording off the desk of this gig, which I'll link to somewhere when it's been mastered, it didn't sound too bad in raw form.
Apologies to young Dominic Malin, a young and rather nervous singer/guitarist who went on before us, and wasn't quite sure what to do with the DI lead from his guitar when he'd finished: "Err... should I just unplug my guitar?"
"No! You must stay there all night!" called out our Mick, to a suddenly silent room... poor kid looked briefly terrified!
No-one took any photos, as far as I know, so here's one of the Allnight Chemists playing the Fleece in about 1987. My haircut's the same, anyway...
Friday last saw us return to The George in Bradford on Avon, where landlord Darren had a mouthwatering array of local real ales and ciders ready for us... many were sampled, and all found favour, and a pretty good crowd in the place too, always a pleasure to do this one.
The next night, with me feeling unaccountably jaded, we headed off to Lytchett Matravers in Dorset, which as well as a name that sounds like an Edwardian skin complaint, boasts a very large and impressive village hall which was hosting a beer festival... it had evidently been going on for some time, as an ambulance had just arrived to pick up a comatose body from the adjoining playing fields.
As we chatted with the organiser, a genial punk geezer who used to run a pub we played at in Poole a while ago, a purple-faced gent with a glazed expression staggered up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and whispered conspiratorially "I 'aven't 'ad a piss yet!". I didn't have the heart to tell him that actually, yes he had...
Lovely big stage in this place, huge lighting rig as well, but the acoustics were shocking. In between sets a DJ played his eighties record collection ('Eye of the Tiger', anyone?) and cheerfully burbled away completely incomprehensibly in the way that only DJs can.
While we were playing, an elderly gent came and asked us if we would play "a waltz, or a quickstep?" and was quite disappointed when I explained that we were unlikely to. He made the best of a bad job though - over the next hour he must have dragged every woman under 40 in the place around the floor with him, the cunning old fox...
A good night,especially the Exmoor Beast!
(That's a beer, not the dancing gent...)
