Foxwood Steel, East Steel, Leeds Silver Steel Sparrows play Briggate Friday July 4 2014

I think Leeds shoppers will know the tunes by now! Better learn some new ones.

 

Anyway here we are again, this time a 24 piece band, thankfully lots of single pans, so room for us all - just, and two drum-kits. Dynamics might have been a bit on the fortissimo side. Oh well, it's the fabulous end of our fabulous tour of Leeds Town Centre. I was a bit hyper myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got the last slot of the day, which meant we could get the most players. However we also got the rain. The audience evaporated as we set up, then reappeared as we drove away the clouds.

 

 

We were me, Bex, Anne, Lynn, Wanda, Fehmina, Tim, Bart, Chloe, Millie S, Peter, Claudia, Andy, Wendy, Jeanette, Charlotte, George, Katie, Ash, Georgia [Gig], Georgia [G2], Naomi, Trish, Karl [work experience still more than he bargained for].

 

This was great end to a great Grand Depart week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Foxwood, East Steel, Sparrows: Leeds Pan Central Again Outside Leeds Arena

 

 

 

On Friday Anne W wondered if we could play outside Leeds Arena as people wait for the Tour de France cyclists to come past. Before I said yes, I asked if any players from all three bands would be able to manage it. Mostly they wondered why I was waiting . . .

 

 

 

 

 

On Monday we discovered how the road closures would affect our prospects for an easy load.

I put out a general all-band request, and in the end got 26 of us. We got our 15 seconds worth on Calendar, Euro-tele. One player's sister saw us in Australia.

 

 

 

 

Bex and I went down in the van at 1.30, met Ash, unloaded. I took van back to Hyde Park, cycled back down. Appropriately.

As the clock ticked down to our start point the players started to roll up. The pictures will speak for themselves. Tony gave me a massive hug! I think he liked it.

 

And I stopped worrying that there would be a big enough audience to justify dragging so many players out on buses, trains, walking, bikes!

Foxwood and co: Leeds Pan Central gearing up for the Grand Depart

Alison contacted me. Would we like to play Victoria Gardens, outside the Art Gallery on Wednesday? Well actually, as Bex doesn't work work [ie does do parenting] on a Monday, could I swop to Monday? Yes. We were already gonna play the Briggate Le Stage on Friday and I figured a bit of distance between the two events might help.

This was for our European visitors to Leeds. Proud to be asked, now scrabbling around for players. From Foxwood we got me, Bex, Sarah, Gig, Bart; from East Steel we got Wanda, Kirsty; from Sparrows, George, Ash, Naomi. Incidental players: Karl [Work Experience student, getting a bit more than he expected], Mikey, and Sandra [ex-student and ex-Sparrow who we called over out of the audience].

Found ourselves being filmed for some part of official Grand Depart video. Did we mind? Answer: Of course not.

We had been asked to play from 12 till 2pm with a break. In the end we decided just to play on, with just a couple of 4 minute gaps between tunes.

Once you've been a float at Leeds or Huddersfield or Manchester, two solid hours seems nowt.