It was a quiet holiday. The odd day trip, the odd meal out. A celebration of our Wedding Anniversary and an 18th Birthday. Plenty of rest in the summer sunshine, reading Bill Bryson and enjoying a very relaxing time. Then eldest son gets a message.
"It's the Beer Festival next Saturday can your dad's band play either 3-5 or 5-7, let me know they need to get the programmes printed."
Aside from the short notice, the super cool bass player is away at a music festival in Oxfordshire so we're not available, and yet...
Perhaps it was the Pinot Grigio that was interfering with my thought processes, because I heard myself say:
"Tell him your brother and I will do 3-5, something acoustic, probably Oasis and Beatles songs."
"Great you're on!" was the reply.
I slept on it and realised in the morning we weren't in that episode of Dallas where it was all a dream. We had a week to sort out a couple of hours of songs that my youngest and I could perform with me singing and playing acoustic rhythm and him playing lead guitar.
Now as I've posted before our Thomas isn't a huge fan of the three-chord rock and roll standard. He is very into Oasis and plays Noel Gallagher's guitar parts as well as anyone. Now that's great except I resemble Liam Gallagher in no discernible way except age (actually I'm just over a year younger), and there's no way I'm wearing a Parker, especially not in mid-August.
Whilst I like Oasis and have a fondness for Wonderwall, having to learn 25 songs in such a short period of time was going to be nigh on impossible. I convinced him we should include some Beatles songs as well, especially since the audience weren't going to sit through more than a dozen Oasis songs without getting twitchy.
Reluctantly he agreed and so we set off to the beach with the dog to write a set list.
In the time it takes a Border Collie to resemble a drowned rat we had a long list of 30 songs to work with. Some we both knew well: Don't Look Back in Anger, Supersonic and Some Might Say. Others would be a stretch for him: A Hard Day's Night, She Loves You, Eleanor Rigby, and some would be a voyage into the unknown: The Masterplan and Stand by Me (better known as the Halifax advert).
We began to rehearse in earnest. Some songs we ditched like Helter Skelter because they just wouldn't work, and some like Songbird we persevered with. However, we found ourselves a couple of songs short of the 25 we needed. Tom suggested something a bit radical.
When Oasis and Blur were battling for number ones at the height of Britpop in the mid 1990's. I was part of a band at university. We were on reflection pretty good, and we had ambition, but as our time studying came to an end the band fizzled out. During our time we had written and recorded some original songs. Tom discovered these and taught himself to play them. He suggested we should perform a couple now. No one in the audience would know how they were actually supposed to sound so it wouldn't matter if we made mistakes. Brilliant! We chose two: False Paradise and Smalltown.
Saturday dawned as a hot summer's day. We set up outside the pub to a packed beer garden and began:
"I need to be myself, I can be no one else..."
We were away. Tom was brilliant, he's a very talented guitarist and was absolutely faultless, even when I cut him off in the middle of the Live Forever solo. We played for two hours, and I got sunburned. There really was rapturous applause, if you doubt me watch the videos on our Facebook page @DadLadMusic.
One song in particular got a very positive reaction. Not Oasis, not The Beatles, not even the 12-bar rock and roller about driving on the A65 I've previously posted about. No, we got a standing ovation for Smalltown, a song that hasn't been played live anywhere for at least 25 years. Time for a reunion for the uni band? Could be.
In the meantime, Dad and the Lad are born, now go and follow us on Facebook!
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