13 Aug WHITBY REGATTA 2018: Has anybody seen our drummer?

This is the third year running that we’ve been booked to play the music tent on Archery Green at the Regatta. We’ve just done the three days and had a great time. But keeping together and managing a bunch of juveniles – such as our lot – is never straightforward. Once over we only had the one drummer – Marshall. But since Marsh moved abroad last year you’ll maybes notice that we often have a different drummer keeping the beat together at the back on different occasions. On our latest album it’s Steve Cooper – but he’s a VERY busy man and has a number of musical projects on the go. Steve plays with us on our Sunday afternoon sessions at THE ENDEAVOUR – and on other occasions- but on Thursday evenings – and certain other times – we have Chris P (aka PARKY) on drums, or occasionally Chris G on Congas. During the week leading up to this year’s regatta Simon was quite ill and laid up with food poisoning. As a consequence the final rehearsal for the regatta sessions was cancelled, and vital instructions got lost along the way. We were planning to play with Parky, but forgot that he had never played this gig before – and didn’t know where it was – as it was in a pop-up tent onwhat is normally an empty grass area.

Just to confuse things further , for the first gig (on Saturday 11 August) we had arranged to play with Jeff – the Conga player who was on with the act before us – Kwame D, but just before the gig Jeff got taken ill and had to pull out. SO – we just did the gig without a drummer. Everything went fine. It was a chilled-out sound, but it suited the event. Audience happy, job done. Even so we promised that tomorrow (Sunday) we would have our drummer back.

On Sunday Parky didn’t turn up for the gig. We tried to ring him with no joy. Not picking up. Left loads of frantic messages, but in the end had to go on without him. We told the audience over the PA that if anyone noticed a drummer wandering around to send him our way. Half way through the set – in the middle of a song – Phil (keyboards) told Simon (Vocals) that Parky had messaged back – he was waiting down at the bandstand on the pier with his drums! It’s a fair distance, but Parky did make it and set up while we were still playing. He played maybes 2 and a bit songs to close the set. SO we announce that tomorrow (Monday) we would do the whole set with drums – at last.

Monday came and so did Parky. The set went well. We put bums on the limited number of seats that the management had decided to put out, and the stall holders reported that they felt we had created the right atmosphere for the “Market Village” – the tent village that we played in and for. We took a rare photo of Parky sat in the cockpit of his kit and decided to use that pic on our Facebook post for that day because you don’t often get to see drummers – do you?

PS: Here’s a shot of a T-REX stuffed with a very sporting young lady TASHA – that we spotted out there in our audience. She popped up to the mic for a quick photo-shoot. Great outfit.