The band is set, the lights are on and we have started our evening's entertainment. There are already a few people on the floor dancing to that great Bill Withers tune "Lovely Day" and it makes me realize that people who were growing up in the sixties are much more in tune with live music and are used to dancing to a live band than the current generation. What also hits Home is how the generation of today, when they get the opportunity to listen to a great soul band playing great soul music, get caught up by the music we play and respond so well to it. It makes me realize that bands such as mine will be playing soul music for a party like this and like we do for younger persons weddings, long after current musical trends die.
The evening progresses, the soul band picks up in tempo, the horns are riffing those familiar riffs from such favourites as "Hold on I`m Coming," "Dancing in the Street" and "I Feel Good". I always kid Mark our main singer and master guitarist when he sings "I Feel Good" by James Brown. James Brown is in his mid seventies, American and black. Mark is white, in his forties and from Scunthorpe! At the end of the tune I say what I always say?.it always gets a laugh?"Its like James Brown was in the room!"
The audience is hanging in there with us. Drenched in sweat and transported in time, they are back in the Flamingo in Soho or some other sweaty dive of their youth. I look round and the boys in the band are having a ball. We are working real hard; we are sweating more than the audience. To make a band like ours rock as hard as it does requires a great deal of energy. Soul music isn't music played off the back foot; it is high-energy music that drives. As such, whether it is loud or quiet, it requires total commitment and all ones physical resources. An amateur band just doesn't cut it. They are unable to give the energy coupled with the sense of groove that good soul music requires. It needs relentless practice of ones instrument, high energy all evening that cannot drop?in fact it must increase as the evening progresses and a lot of stamina that only constant work on your instrument gives you.
Before we know it the night is over. We manage to persuade the birthday boy, after two encores, that it is time to finish. He is delighted with the band and the soul music we have played for his party. A few of his guests have come up for Business cards. They too have sixtieth birthday parties coming up and they too love their soul music!!
We have been paid and the gear has been packed away. We are debating whether to employ a roadie at the moment. Everyone in the band loves playing soul music for a party but no one likes to cart gear! The funny thing is this. Every year technology makes musical gear lighter but somehow every year the gear feels slightly heavier!! As you, me, everybody, gets nearer to his or her sixtieth birthday party I suppose everything gets just that little bit heavier!
We say our goodbyes. Hugs and handshakes. You wouldn't believe that we see each other on average two or three times a week! On the way Home we leave the radio off. It is time for quiet reflection. We discuss the gig. What went well. How we could improve the set order. We decide we can`t. What new tunes we want to incorporate into our soul music band party repertoire. This isn't easy. The most important criteria is to get people up dancing. There is sometimes a conflict between favourites and the sort of tunes, which will fill the floor for the party. This is always our main priority. It is what we get paid for. Paid well for. We have a reputation to maintain.
Andy has been dropped off. It is two o'clock. I am Home fifteen minutes later. The gear is brought into the house. Must look int
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