Stand In, in the shadows of love.

Some splendid standing-in by our friend Mr Frisky Pat on drums last night while The Drummer is off on a business jolly, skiing of all things. The Picturehouse connection was well served by Pat actually playing one of Reado's old kits, albeit with it having been redecorated ("people used to ask me why I had "Peado" written on my bass drum, and in Essex you don't need that sort of question around closing time...."). After a couple of nervous glances back during the early part of the set it became clear`that the boy had done his homework and we all relaxed and pretty much left him to it. With a sizable St Patricks Night crowd swelled by the addition of a few refugees from the cancelled Limehouse Lizzy gig up the road to play to, we stretched into it and thought it only fair to drop a couple of Lizzy numbers into the set to try and compensate them. Not actually knowing any Thin Lizzy songs as a whole has never been a bar to our ambition, and so The Bass Player and I hastily instructed the rest of the band in the fine art of 'Dancing In The Moonlight' ("It's Em, D, C and G all the way through - watch me for the changes and try and keep up...") and I think a few people appreciated that we'd made the effort - either that or they wanted to see if we could play 'Jailbreak' any worse. A toilet break for The Singer later on provided ample opportunity for me to reprise my slow version of 'Don't Believe A Word' from some years ago, complete with shape-throwing bridge-pick-up Gary Moore solo (well, if Gary'd had three of his fingers gaffa taped together and was wearing mittens he might have produced some similar work) and franky I only need the very slightest of opportunities in these sorts of cases. The Bass Player again gamely played along with while Pat wondered if there were any more little surprises we had in store for him. Only one, really - we demanded he play the last song of the set without his shirt on. I'm not sure why, but the gallery of previously chaste young ladies in the audience demanding such a thing may have swayed us somewhat, especially given that the head cheerleader turned out to be my wife. A sterling show all round in the face of clear and present under-the-weatherness from at least two of the combo. The place is up for new management soon. They'll probably turn it into a fun pub or something, but I ask you, how much more fun can you have?