What a brilliant two days! The weather has been fantastic and we have really made the most of our stay in Scarborough. We visited all our old haunts, walked around the castle, won cheap plastic toys in the arcade and ate crab sandwiches! By the way amusement prizes included two Rubicks Cube key rings, two small Teletubby dolls and two pairs of cheap black sunglasses. Whoever said those places are a rip off don’t know they’re born!
Musically it has been superb. For those that don’t know I used to play electric guitar in a funk band called Manfat Voodoo. That was around about 1995-1996. Manfat Voodoo was already established before I joined and kept going long after I left. The band has had a cult following around the region for many years. It was a pleasure to meet up with lead singer and songwriter Dav White after 12 years.
Dav’s powerful voice and intricate (often zany) lyrics undoubtedly made the band what it was. Dav and I sat in the hotel room and re-arranged four classic Manfat songs for acoustic guitar and performed two of them live at the Cellars last night. The response was awesome, especially to some die hard Voodoo fans in the audience. It was great to be back up on stage with Dav after such a long time and hope to do it again soon! The man’s a genius.
Manfat Voodoo drummer James Potts sadly died from a brain tumor in January 2004 and on Tuesday night Dav took us to the part of the beach where his ashes were scattered. That meant a lot as we were in New Zealand when he died and weren’t able to attend the funeral.
So on to Tinderbox. As well as Dav we met up with two friends who were previously lecturers at university. More importantly though Martin Arnold and Matthew Pateman were part of our first ever acoustic venture together – a band called Apeneck Sweeney (named by Matthew after the TS Elliot poem ‘Sweeney Amongst The Nightingales’). Martin and Matthew were instrumental in writing, playing on and producing our first (and as yet unreleased) album ‘The Boy and the Moon’. Matthew wrote lyrics for the songs ‘Behind The Smile’ and ‘Golden’ and Martin wrote the beautiful guitar solo for ‘Behind The Smile’ amongst other things.
Meeting up with these guys after 12 years was wonderful but it doesn’t end there. Our set at the Cellars last night (after the Voodoo reunion) included ‘Behind The Smile’ and Martin joined us on stage and played his original solo note for note without even an indication that over a decade had gone by since we last played together. The audience loved it. Tinderbox played twice after being called back up on stage later in the evening. Our stuff went down so well and the audience responded with enthusiasm to a set that included ‘Coming Back To You’, ‘Travelling’ , ‘The State of Play’ and ‘Broken Trees’.
Martin went on to play an awesome solo set. Matthew even got up and recited some of his poetry. What a night! Topped off with a jam at Martin’s house that took us into the wee small hours.
We are on the road now on the way to Cambridge where we are playing a feature length set tonight. I’m writing this in the car – we’re on the A1 and just passed another of about a million Eddie Stobart trucks. Just crossing the River Trent now.
We had an amusing ‘Dual’ moment earlier today that probably bears mentioning. As we left North Yorkshire we found we had a huge red truck tailgating us with a somewhat irate driver. Well, the Moonmobile doesn’t like hills much and was struggling a bit to be honest. Naturally I took the opportunity to turn around and swear at the driver, and this surprisingly made his tantrum all the more animated. We drove on and lost him but we kept looking back and seeing the truck in the distance – it was spooky...just like the Spielberg film. When we stopped at a secluded roadside cafe for breakfast about half an hour later what should pull in – yes...a huge red truck. We both stared disbelievingly out of the window with mouths stuffed full of egg and bacon. Turned out it was a different truck! Still we downed our tea and bolted. Ha ha!
Not long to go now. Back in Bournemouth on Saturday!