Foxwood Steel and East Steel at Otley Carnival 2015

After a van booking mix up I was glumly contemplating fitting a 22 piece steelband into a Ford Transit, in fact my Ford Transit. But it's nil desperandum for me, whom a friend once described as "relentlessly cheerful". And it's nil desperandum for Bex, considered by some to be UK champion van-packer. So we decided to:

 

 

 

 

1. Abandon the big basses

2. Give Wanda the drum kit to put in her car

3. Bring as few doubles and triples as possible

4. Pack carefully

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, we did all that, and two players didn't play [one never was, and one asked did I mind?].

 

 

 

So Otley Carnival June 20 2015, Foxwood, East Steel, one Sparrow. Gig now works Saturdays, Ash was at a wedding. Bex and I already had abandoned big bass and cellos, and set up our soprano [ex-tenor] pans. Eyes glued to the songsheets I sight-read my way through tunes that I knew in bass motor-memory. Vicky and Sophie were "invited" to do the same. There was a time when everyone wanted to play the melody, seen as being the lead singer of the band. Now we are all too cool for such things.

 

 

 

Did I mention the Dalek?

 

 

 

Then Tim phoned to say he thought four drummers was too much. I assured him that, in Trinidad steelbands had more than that in their percussion section. When we arrived he realised I meant two drum-kit with four people sharing, and otherwise playing other percussion. Too amusing! Four drum-kits! In the little blue van! No!

 

 

unloading

 

 

 

So, the day dawned with threatened showers. I was changing gears with the second drum pedal. I was braking with the central struts of the collapsible stands - not true. Poetic licence]. Everybody gave everybody else a lift. It was all going too smoothly. And it never stopped going smoothly. True California Girls was a minor disaster. Then Daisy shouted "Restorative Song!" and then it was Clocks.

Dalek coming home

 

We were me [Victoria], Bex, Vicky, Charlotte, Amy, Sophie, Wanda, Pippa, Claudia, Kirsty, Tim, Natalie, Yi Bai, Anne, Wendy, Lynn, Jeanette, Daisy, Maddie and Katie. And Andrew came to take photos.

 

 

That's it. Left the pans, and the ladders in the Little Blue cos tomorrow it's Foxwood at Cross Flatts Park.

 

What a lovely day.

 

 

 

 

Debriefing