Badsworth Village Fete 13 July
Report Phil Barr videos Joe Fisher,
With the British Summer now in its full glory, alternating a day of rain with a day of intermittent drizzle and temperatures if you’re lucky of 15°C, Wakeylele arrived in the picture book village of Badsworth suitably clad in duffle coats and long johns, (thanks to Peter Joule for that idea) ready to brave the elements. The setting was idyllic with various stalls and gazebos circling the school field which looked out onto fields of reluctantly ripening wheat and barley.
Joe had once more been busy behind the scenes setting up the new sound equipment under our designated gazebo which also enabled one of the organisers to loan our mike to welcome people to the event, to announce the winners of the scarecrow competition and to announce our presence under our less well-known title of Wakeyleleke- maybe he was thinking about the amount of the rain we’ve had this month. Mind you, he’s not on his own making gaffes this week as earlier this morning I was trying to recall what vice – president Donald Putin said at the NATO summit yesterday. Just before this, incidentally David had literally been brought to his knees during a sound check when his music stand collapsed, perhaps in sympathy with the number of gigs we’ve done recently. Fortunately, being made of stronger stuff he was able not only to stand up but also to deliver his usual commanding performance as leader and conductor of our merry band. In Pop’s absence it was left to the whole ensemble to belt out our opening to the well-chosen (village fair) Coconuts ditty and we were away in full voice bringing a varied selection of numbers from our repertoire to a mainly new audience, excepting our family stalwarts of which there was a healthy number today. We completed all our set list in one go without any major hiccups and from where I was sitting, glancing round the band, everyone looked to be in the zone and indeed the passing spectators seemed happy with our efforts. Val, standing at the back provided a nice bass sound to accompany the in – unison ukes, managing to avoid the domino effect she feared at the start as her music stand was tilting forward on uneven ground. On the dress front Mike S’s shirt once more stood out from the crowd while Maria had cleverly arranged and sewn a set of ukulele shapes buttons onto her rain hat, thereby winning the Wakeylele titfer of the day award.
It only remained for the band to gather their belongings, for some to wander or plod around the stalls to maybe buy something craft-y or to attempt to splat-a-rat if they were feeling so inclined and to look ahead to Tuesday’s fine-tuning session for Friday evening’s concert. Thanks to Geoff for arranging today’s gig, to David for keeping us focused, to Jane for a couple of videos (to follow) and to Joe for successfully sorting the tech.
p.s As for tomorrow night will it be a double knighthood for Southgate… arise Sir Gareth or two hours in the stocks being grilled by Roy Keane? We shall see.