We were pleased to be invited to play at this new event in Arlington organised by Bruce Knapp and friends. We’ve know Bruce for a while now, he’s played on some of our recorded work, and is a brilliant musician and a lovely bloke. The Section is a band featuring Bruce, Tomas Siroky on double bass and Geoff Nicholls on drums. It was a community event, bring food and drink to share, sit at refectory tables and enjoy the music. The Section performed first, blues, jazz and good times New Orleans music. Carolyn Burnett then joined them to beautifully sing with backing by Ziza Stupkova, then Ziza sang some jazz numbers. I’d not been able to join the band in the afternoon for a practice (our son’s birthday) but Jim had been there so they’d had a good run through. I was very nervous but it was great to play with a band again, something we haven’t done since our Temperature’s Rising Album Launch at The Grove, at which Bruce also played. All of our numbers went down well, a slight hiccup when I missed a verse admirably covered by the band, but it all felt good. The people sitting near us on the table were very impressed and said they’d be in touch about us performing at an event in Chiddingly for the annual festival later in the year – prompted by our song The Chiddingly Onion Pie Murder.
This was a Pass the Hat event and was very relaxed, with gentle chat between numbers. The audience could have been larger for the venue (the Bluebell Farmhouse Kitchen again) and the band definitely deserved a larger audience. We only had to take along our instruments as the PA was all there ready and it’s a 5 minute drive from home – in the summer we could easily walk it and even take the dog. I think it’s something they’ll be repeating so look forward to the next time.
