Blog: Cornwall, land of the Secret Gig

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On Friday afternoon I met The Crust Of My Pasty at Paddington and we ZOOMED South to Scenic Cornwall, for a SECRET GIG

It had all been organised by my DAD - Lin, my Step-Mum, is going off to New Zealand soon to see my brother and his family, and Dad's not following on for a month or so, so he wanted to give her a Special Surprise Send-Off. THUS he'd booked their village's social club for a SECRET GIG (and mostly PARTY) featuring ME and his band MAWBUS.

I've had to be SUPER QUIET about all this, MUCH as I would have loved to talk about it, as both of them are ACTIVE on the Facebook - INDEED, when i tweeted/facebooked "We're on the way!" on Friday afternoon Lin was thinking, she later told us, "Where are they off to?" I wanted to send my Dad a CODED MESSAGE to let him know we were on the way... but had forgotten to tell him WHAT the code was, so 2 minutes later got a worried phone call from him, to see what had gone wrong!

Anyway, we arrived in St Austell where my lovely sister Laura picked us up and WHISKED us to the club where, an hour or so later, Lin was VERY SURPRISED INDEED! It was GRATE - loads of their PALS were there and a DELIGHTFUL time was had by all. We both did TWO sets - in each case Dad had LEARNED WELL from my TEACHINGS and insisted that Mawbus go on first. I RUED THE DAY when I had said to him "Always go on first if you can, that way you can safely get drunk."

Mawbus is Dad and Lin with a couple of their friends, and I FILLED with pride watching them, on only about their third or fourth gig, ROCKING away, it was GRATE. I was impressed with Dad's insistence that, tho they are a FOLK band, they finish each set with a BEATLES song so that everybody could sing along. I COPIED the idea by ending each of MY two sets with cover versions, THUS:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

I Come From The Fens

Back For Good

Payday Is The Best Day

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

Boom Shake The Room

As I say, it was a LOVELY night which ended, for the singing at least, with another of their friends standing up and singing "Cornish Lads" and "Bound For South Australia." COR! It was like being in a BBC4 documentary or something as he stood there completely unaccompanied until gradually the whole ROOM joined in. It was GRATE!

Next day we went off to Perranporth where the wind was MASSIVE - there were HUGE waves coming in to shore and all the SAND was being whipped up. It looked incredible, like something out of a MOVIE on MARS, with RIPPLES of sand and great long twists and tails of it wafting off into the sea. Myself and The Sea By My Beach agreed: it was AMAZING!

There was a pub stop, some telly and tea, and a DELICIOUS curry down the road before we gathered that evening around the wireless set (well, the Sky Box set to RADIO anyway) to listen to Mr Steve Lamacq's Radio Two Show. I'd bumped into him in London Town a few days ago and he'd told me he'd be playing Other Bands' Setlists which brilliantly gave us all a chance to get settled down with a WHISKY or TEA to listen to it, and LO! there was much HALLOOing when he did so. It was all RATHER exciting!

And then on Sunday we returned home, slightly worn out but fully FUNNED UP after a lovely weekend. Cornwall, it is GRATE!

posted 11/10/2010 by MJ Hibbett

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