Travels With The Corrds

Paddy’s Night (One)

Oooh, Fareham… Where do we start? And should we leave some bits out?!

Fareham was our first in a consecutive run of no less than FOUR St Patrick’s Days. It’s quite a new Chicago Rock and, consequently, everything there was pretty much perfect, but not so rigid as a very new venue – it’s at that lovely stage where the staff have been there just long enough now to be developing a nice camaraderie, the food and efficiency is still perfect, but all the rigidness and panic that goes with a new venue has almost disappeared, leaving a very relaxed, and friendly and confident atmosphere.  We got a good impression of the place from the word ‘go’.

After setting up, we all sat down in the restaurant area and had some nice food and then went for a relax in the comfy chairs by the window, as Derek and Dave went to check into the hotel we’d booked for the night, and returned with the keys (attached to the most ridiculous keyrings I ever saw – see pic). Soon enough it was time for us to get ready for the show.

What can I say about the gig itself? The place was absolutely rockin’. We had a whale of a time onstage and the audience were fantastic – really great gig. There were loads of very interesting characters when we were on stage, especially one little guy who’s entire body seemed to be ruled by his pelvis from the minute the music started – the strangest looking jig I’ve seen to date. It always makes me chuckle to see people start one of our jigs with a full pint, and then – without drinking any of it – needing to go to the bar for a refill when they stop dancing. The funniest part about this little guy was when he stopped dancing, halfway through our one serious song – Runaway – because he suddenly felt he had to check that his fly was done up. It was very difficult to sing after I saw that because I was chuckling so much… He he he…

After the set we went to the bar – of course – and got talking to a lot of people who really enjoyed the show. Unfortunately, with it being almost Paddy’s Day, a lot of people were getting to a difficult stage of drunkenness…Sadie had to shout at some guy for trying to get ‘touchy-feely’ in general conversation, and another guy thought it would be impressive to tell us a joke about the Brits who were executed in Iraq… and didn’t seem to understand why we wouldn’t let him tell us the joke… That’s the guy in the picture there…

It was great to see some family members, Johnny and Moira, and to have a few drinks and a good chat with them afterwards (volume permitting) – one of the nicer things about playing in this area of the country. Eventually they had to go, though, but not before we got some piccies, of course. Also had an unexpected visit from the manager of another venue we play regularly in Fareham - a very pleasant surprise indeed.

Soon after they left, however, we were joined by a group of four blokes who had been mucking about nearby and looking to get some attention. When they came over at first, they seemed really nice, but one of them did seem a bit argumentative (the one who’s idea it had been for them to join us, funnily enough) and he started a bit of sparring banter with our Andrea (who takes no crap, as none of us do). I thought he was harmless enough, even though he didn’t seem to fussed on Scousers (I got this impression from a comment he made which went something like: “You want to hate Scousers but you can’t, can you?” … which I thought sounded a bit like an insult disguised as a compliment?).

Anyway we all got talking and as we were talking Andrea was checking her phone and I was taking some pictures… All ok… until suddenly Andrea’s phone wasn’t there anymore – and none of us had moved.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the only people able to take the phone were these four guys, who all seemed nice, but went completely apeshit when they realised they were the prime suspects. (logically), and suddenly made themselves look really suspicious. After many more events (and a visit from the local Bobbys), we all parted ways, and only afterwards realised that one of the blokes had been crawling on the floor near Andrea’s handbag when they first came over, and two of the guys had disappeared for a short time in between the phone going missing and the police turning up. Most of them seemed really nice, but – of the two who ‘went for a walk’ - one of them was really drunk and arrogant, and the other one was suspiciously quiet and a bit smug. It’s very disappointing when things like that happen – especially as we were just minding our own business when they approached us, and we were nothing but nice to them when they drew up chairs and settled down for a chat. I was even nice to them when they were leaving, as there was nothing else we could do.

On getting back to the hotel – which was really cool, like a ‘Most Haunted’ location – Andrea called her phone company and made sure the phone was completely useless to it’s new owner, and we girls calmed ourselves down with a good natter before going to sleep.

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