The Alban Arena, St Albans 17th June 2010

Hello everyone!

Having had a 3 weeks off, it was nice to be back on the road although I was supremely bored on the journey up.. There were only 3 of us in our van, Jeff, Chris and Me. Fredi was coming up after her exam with Paul our sound man.

It was about 5 miles away from the venue that it started to feel familiar and then I asked if we had played here before to be told YES! I had really forgotten, isn't that bad? about a year ago apparently.. When i got there it all came back to me. the green room space etc.. the stage door. The very echoey stairs up to the stage - good for practising with some natural reverb!!

I didn't take many pictures actually, how very lazy of me!

The Alban Arena

The most exciting part of the show was that we were to have Ross on saxophones for the first time, well not the first time actually....... This leads me to me trip down memory lane!! ........... (cue wobbly music like they do in rubbish programmes when it's a flash back scene!!)

Now for those who don't know, back in the day in Torbay there was a band called Dr Frank, made up of a group of school boys from the different local schools. The line up was

Vocals - Chris Thomas (Whats he doing again? lol)

Guitar -Barney Dine (Now fronting a band who is supporting Will Young this summer in The Devon Festival)

Saxophone - Ross Purves

Bass Guitar - Jan Tribble (now an architect)

Trumpet and Keyboards - Mikey Taylor (now touring with Joseph)

Drums - Jeff Glover (hands as he's now known!)

Now I remember doing a few pink floyd songs even back then, can't remember which ones

There were a few band changes over the years, I even did a stint as a backing singer but I was pretty unconfident at this point. I remember doing a few pink floyd songs even back then, can't remember which ones. They were extremely popular with all the young people in the area and looking back they really were good! I will try to dig out an old picture!!

After a stint in London they went there separate ways, Jeff and Chris stayed together and eventually formed a new band with.....

Guitar - Steve Loar

Bass -Patrick Forbear.

(sounding familiar?)

These guys were called 'Starskey' and played the circuit for many many years. Functions Weddings and pubs.

Steve went to Spain for a while to live where i'm told he would still play the old set to himself on his guitar just to keep the memory alive! He couldn't stand it and thankfully he came back again and took up where they left off.

A mere 10 years or so on! A few floyd songs came into the set and were going down well. The band then got asked to headline the Brixham Happenin festival in 2007 (?). Feeling they needed some backing vocals, Chris turned to me and asked if I was up for it and did I know anyone else, I called Audra and we did a show in the at the Happenin, with the Brixham people dancing around in the field in the rain, jut like glastonbury! ha cough! I gathered together a choir of kids from my youth theatre to be the brick in the wall kids. We played a mix of songs, originals, covers and finished with a few floyd numbers including comfortably numb!

I disappeared to Egypt for the summer and when I returned the band had decided to go full time with the floyd stuff, Audra was on backing vocals and when the theatres started coming in I joined up again as second BV!... 2 years on and we're going strong, the family atmosphere has got stronger and even though there have been a few changes we've made it through the other side. Which brings me back to Ross paying on saxophones again after oooh about 15 years or so.

He was really genuinely pleased to be playing us, and he did a brilliant job after 1 run through with the band in sound check!!

Here's Ross

Ok so back to the show. It was being filmed this evening by ESL (event sound and light) who also do our lights for the shows. The purpose of the filming is to have some clips for you tube and promote the show so when it's out I will let you know (if you don't find out some other way) and then you can all share it with your friends and get them to come watch us too!!!!

Steve - Restringing his guitar summer shorts style!!

After the show we met two lovely people 'Jayne and Richard', I believe they have written on the website guest book too! They are big floyd fans and we had a good gossip about the show they went to in Welwyn Garden City recently. Jayne told me she reads my blog and said it was a bit like reality television, really good to see what goes on behind the scenes and that she feels like she knows the band from all the stories. My counter said that not many people have visited the blog lately so I was a bit disheartened, I think maybe it is wrong cos a lot of people say they read it. If you do, come and let me know after a show as it keeps me going!! Hence this super long entry!

Au revoir! xx