Foxwood play Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Well Debs

This was a nice gig indeed. In three cars and a van we decend into the winter Friday evening rush hour on the M621/M1. Deciding to avoid the motorway in case an accident stops traffic altogether  I am in the van with Stewart and Tim doing 5 miles an hour as we roll up to the accident on the roundabout on the Dewsbury Road.  Consequently Bex with Nat, Sarah with Amy and Vicky with Katie all arrive before us.  Nothing new here, of course!

Play two sets as guests tuck into Caribbean dinner at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park Restaurant/Cafe, get watered and fed ourselves at half time. Then as we play the final hour and a quarter second set; the diners stop talking and seem to be treating it like a concert. In the absence of any dedicated melody players Bex and I am stagger out way through all the tunes, with Stewart and Natalie doing the odd number.

I ruin Help by playing the chorus chord sequence backwards on bass.  Bex sends everyone home with an Is Heat highlight moment. Sadly I have only got eight Sparrows CDs with me, as we could have sold twice that [and we are still paying off the studio recording!].

Then a peculiar incident to end. A teacher [in a primary school with a steelband] approaches asking for a copy of one of the tunes that is actually one of our signature tunes. I am taken aback by the boldness of the request, and I end up offending her by saying that I don't usually give our arrangements away. I don't mean to offend her but if everyone did the song, then we would have to stop doing it. [I think she thought we just read them out of a book]. Oh this is a conversation we have had before: what's fair game, and what is a question of we saw it first!

Thanks to Damon for booking us, for this cold November evening and of course for hosting us plus Sparrows in warmer times. Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Made for steelbands. See here: