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Hors d’oeuvre
Andrea Ferguson
Main Course
Mike Steele, Steve Cooper, Arnie Weavers, Sherry & Sian, Sam Harrison, John Pape & Steve Lealand, Gary Rudd, Shane
Dessert
Toby Harris
As the dark clouds of gloom and doom continue to loom above us, it’s refreshing to have some good news to report. At 6am on Easter Monday, Richard’s wife, Clarissa, gave birth to a baby girl, Imogen. Hoorah! Imogen weighed in at 6lb 10oz and is doing fine. All of us here at the Golden Eagle wish Richard, Clarissa and their family lots of future good health and happiness. Andrea sets sail with her timeless classic, “Passing Through”. She continues with “Who’s That Girl?” and “Dangerous Woman” before “My Little Sister” concludes a set from a lady who has a song writing and singing talent that could have taken her a whole lot further in the music business, had she really wanted it. Maybe we should count our blessings though, for if she had taken that route, she surely wouldn’t be amongst us tonight. Bless her! Mike opens with an old favourite, “Three Steps To Heaven”. There was a lot of unseasonal weather over Easter and he encaptures that with the strangely topical, “Frosty The Snowman”. Sam and Steve then join in and Mike seems to enjoy being part of a band as they treat us to a rocking “Promised Land”. The consistently solid Steve Cooper begins with another impressive original, “Heading Home”. He continues with a cracking cover of Peter Green’s “Oh Well” before finishing off with Rod Clement’s “Whisky Highway”. While all this has been going on, Arnie has been sitting quietly composing a new song. He’s still in the process of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, so Andrea fills in a gap with “Joey” and “Wayfaring Stranger”. Arnie steps up with an original which in true Blue Peter fashion he wrote earlier. It’s as yet untitled although ‘Going Through The Motions’ seems to fit the bill. He follows up with the song that he’s just written here. Obviously it’s still work in progress but knowing Arnie he’ll soon have this little number polished up. John then joins him on guitar as he takes us to the break with “House Of The Rising Sun”. The patio, which doubles as a smoking room, has now also become the semi official rehearsal room where performers try out new combinations or even new songs. There’s been quite a lot of activity out there tonight including Sherry and Sian who, having wanted to perform a song for a little while now, under the encouragement of Andrea make their debuts tonight. Sam and Andrea join them as they give us a rendition of the Zuton’s “Valerie”, Of course it’s not perfect but it’s a very good first time effort nonetheless. ‘Mr. Variety’, as Sam might be named, continues with an abridged version of “The Weight” before following up with a rarely performed cover of Elvis Costello’s “Forty Five”. Sam seems to have fallen in love with Gillian Welch’s “Caleb Meyer” so he’s coaxed Andrea into a duet with himself on guitar and Andrea on stand-up vocals. It works fine as well. What next? ‘Knuckleball Catcher’? :-) Accompanied by Steve on laptop and Toby on djemba, John begins on 12 string guitar for Bob Pegg’s striking “The Last Wolf”. A couple of instrumentals follow with John on solid and hollow electric mandolins. After a short tale about his weekend in Colchester visiting a school where they lock the kids in – sounds like a good idea actually – Gary opens with “Thank You For The Music”. One of Gary’s pet hates is chewing gum and, after entertaining us to an amusing preamble of how he broached the subject with his pupils, he picks up his banjolele for a George Formby spoof, “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour Under The Desktop Overnight?” Toby seems to know Gary’s songs as well as he does so he and Sam pluck their ukuleles to join Gary on one of Toby’s favourites, “Osama Bin Laden”. Circumstances and a helping hand from Ralph of the JB bring a surprise but welcome visit from the deservedly popular keyboard artist, Shane. He and Gary team up for Don MacLean’s “Vincent” and Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” before Shane finishes off with an old favourite of his, Damien Rice’s “Cannonball”. That just leaves time for Toby to finish off the evening with “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” which rather takes us back to where we started. |
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