Thursday, December 20, 2018

The Bikini Beach Band at What's Cookin'

This is the last music event I'm going to write about this year, but I sort of have to because it was such fun. It was a Works Outing; we met in the street, and most of us were lost.
Luckily, our Local Guide is an expert at knowing where gigs are and verily, we were glad.
The Ex-Serviceman's Club (wot, no women?) was warm, welcoming, had carpets, and a shopping trolley downstairs full of raffle prizes. Disorientated by losing my favourite hat, I almost followed Sound Engineer into the Gents but made the correction just in time.
We sat in front of the stage and were excited like children at Christmas time; soon afterwards, the announcement was made and four extraordinary creatures strode to the stage. They all appeared to be taller than average but that could have been crafty costume construction: their magnificent matching attire shouted out to Heatwave and Barry Manilow with ruffled orange sleeves, flared nylon-looking trousers and horrid frightening white patent shoes (don't look! don't look!). Each of their heads was adorned with a fez sporting a nod to the festive season in the form of tinsel wound around the rim.
They had super duper guitars that made the guitar fetishists at our table (yes, I'm one of them) green with envy, and they blasted us with a set of scorching envy-inducing medleys to boot.
They reminded me of a set of lovebirds I saw once in Palmer's Pets in Camden before it became an expensive tearoom: the birds elegantly followed each other in slow motion claw-over-claw up the sides of the cage, and then hanging upside down turned their heads simultaneously in perfect formation, looking at me and my pal as though they were completely taking the p*ss out of us.
Whoever wasn't playing a busy bit of an instrumental (no vocals here, hence perfect and crystal clear sound) was posing in instagram-friendly p*sstakery, absolutely seriously, and rehearsed within an inch of their lives.
We were blown away by their musicianship. Talk about tight! The two guitarists swap lead parts and their guitar sounds are to die for. Standing in the centre, the bass player seemed to be lead poser, but never missed a note. And the drummer is brilliant. There was much consulting of phones in our company to work out what the songs were: many of them were cunningly disguised by the fact that their intros sounded like other songs. The Omen was in there.... Emerson Lake and Palmer, and even a bit of Kraftwerk. The buggers! It was very funny. Half the time you were laughing, the rest listening in astonishment to their musical jiggery-pokery.
The majority of the audience sat there po-faced with their arms folded, despite Stephen's exhortations to them to get up and dance. It was only at the very end, when they exploded into massive applause and the band had to come back for an encore, that they (and we) finally made it to the dance floor and danced like loons, led by the bass player whose headstock narrowly missed several of the dancers, but Health and Safety weren't looking.
It had taken tequila shots for the Works Outing to pluck up courage to dance. The only teetotaller would have got up right at the start if anyone would have joined her. Next time, everybody, remember how good it felt to dance! Ha ha!
That's my Christmas moralising over and done with (one member of the Works Outing is excused as she went swimming beforehand and she bought the crisps).
Thoroughly, thoroughly recommended. You will never be miserable with a show by this lot in your calendar!





No comments:

Post a Comment