 8th December 2020 Lockdown 2 is over and it was time to leave the nest and hit the stage again. The first icy night of the season and the car windscreen needed scraping before we set sail for Chiddingly. It seemed strange and slightly eerie driving past an unlit (with the exception of one of the windows upstairs) Six Bells - it reminded me of a Stephen King film set. I wonder what happens in that lit room? Is it a private club like in prohibition times - who is Chiddingly’s answer to Al Capone and is it all jazz, girls, cigarette smoke and bourbon? Anyway, heaters on in the village hall, Simon’s amp set up with line-in for guitar and a single mic and we were ready to boogie, well, ready to folky and bluesy. I was meant to have written a Blog for our final outing (27/10/20) before Lockdown 2 and didn’t do it! My punishment from our esteemed leader was to go on last and write a blog about the return of the open mic brigade. Normally, I would list each performer and their songs and try and say something clever, or entertaining about them. The blog is not a critique and I would hate that job. What can I say, we had 12 performers, (including some duo action) and they all did a couple of songs, some country, some blues, some jazz, some pop, some covers (quite a few covers) and some original stuff. An enjoyable potpourri of acoustic based music. Along with the older folks, we had a couple of youngsters. The gender demographic was about 50/50. We had 4 beards and 2 slightly unshaven chins. Simon – Keith – Heather – Jason & Lisa – Manus – Colin – Chris S – Emma – Helen – Steph – Helga – Chris M Heather has posted a set of photos on the club Facebook page and a video of Chris Shepherd doing an excellent performance of ‘Wagon Wheels’. Thank you to all the performers - we’ll be back on 22/12/20 for our Christmas Special. Let us know if you want to be there, as we are limited to 16 people and we do obey all the rules. My choice of videos: The two songs I performed and a cover of my second song by Danny McEvoy. My version of ‘Cry’ was filmed at The Six Bells this time last year - little did we know what was coming down the line, but hopefully we will get a return to the old normality before we’re too old to remember it. x Chris - C J Martin
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