Inaugural Freak Music wedding band showcase night.

The Banjo Lounge in action

On balance, all went very well but we’ve had less stressful months at Freak towers. We started talking about a wedding band showcase event ooooh, about a year ago but only really got round to starting to plan it about 5 months ago and then the next thing we knew it was the 18th July. Strewth! Despite the now sadly predictable weather (rain, rain and more rain) the turnout was good and the crowd were receptive to the variety of acts we had on.

Venue

Firstly a huge thanks to Grant, Jo, Bart and the rest of the crew at the Jam House with a special mention to Steve the sound guy. I’ve worked with a fair few sound engineers and for most of them everything is a problem, with Steve nothing was a problem. Thanks to him we managed to soundcheck 7 acts in under four hours and still have room to breath before the public started to show up. No mean feat. And I didn’t have to shout at anyone.

The Acts

Corra

First up were the 1 White Band from Glasgow who’re a top end four piece function band who played a diverse set from Santana to Michael Bublé, or Bubble as they called him. An extremely busy band as we found when clients asked about their availability. Next on were Corra, (right) a lively female fronted act who are a high energy and eclectic ceilidh and covers band who’ll  not only call the dance for the Ceilidh section but the singer will wander about the crowd cajoling and advising as she goes. Nice touch.

To slow things down a little at this juncture we had ceremony singer Pamela Kavanagh and her husband Pete playing semi-acoustic guitar do a couple of songs before the first surprise act of the night. Freak’s own Clanadonia (below) appeared from out of the fire exit led by their piper to do a few of their self penned rabble rousing tunes.

Clanadonia

A short break before the wondrous Banjo Lounge (above) regaled us with their finger-popping, tune-swinging acoustic tunes that combine the awesome power of double bass, funky drums, fat strumming acoustic guitar and the novelty redneck jazz styling of the five string banjo. Obviously there’s a banjo involved.

Surprise number two took the shape of the SOS singing waiters who, unbeknownst to the crowd had been milling about pretending to be staff, one of them even doing the health & safety announcements from the stage before another one of them dressed as the chef pretended to hi-jack the event and burst in to song on cue.

No surprise that Freak’s favourite chanteuse made an appearance on the night, ex X-factor sensation Hollie Burns was on such good form that one of our team thought he was listening to a recorded track when in actual fact it was her belting it out. Last up were the Super records who stepped in last minute to help us out and rounded off a great if slightly adrenalised driven night.

The Super Records

On chatting with all the staff afterwards and during, including the doorman who rather touchingly commented that he was glad he’d volunteered to work on the night as he’d really enjoyed what he got to see, I think it’s safe to say we’ll be invited back.

 

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