Would you trust these shifty looking characters with 45 minutes of your time? We certainly wouldn't, but the good folks of Bradford on Avon did and received rich rewards in the shape of a memorable performance from our valiant Blokes.
We were very pleased to be invited to the now annual Bradford Roots Music Festival A celebration of musical talent in Bradford on Avon that took place on Saturday 11th & Sunday 12th January, 2014.
Our heroes overcame Post New Year hangovers and seasonal snuffles and severe jet lag to lash up a performance that had the audience, including a generous helping of the UK Spooky Men, lapping them up and baying for more.
The show included a slightly false starting "Gringo", followed by a lusty "Turnip Hoer’s Song" with the Vly very much in pesky attendance which neatly segued into a lovely rendition of "Shed" which tees up the slapstick of "The Duct Tape Madrigal" rather nicely.
The blokes then pulled out a beautiful rendition of "Shen Xar" before a number of chaps stepped forward in their Stove Pipe hats to regale the audience with the sing a long with cue cards that is "Unsung Heroes".
Next came a new piece that has startled each and everyone of us how quickly it has come together and become a firm favourite with the lads, our attempt at one of the classics with our version of "The Norwegian Sailor's Song", which leads rather nicely into our very own classic "The Ashton Keynes Land Shanty" before finishing off with our Welsh section and a lovely "Myfanwy" topped off by a cracking "Delilah" which left the almost capacity audience shouting for more - but we knew we had the head start to the bar so declined!
All of this can be heard for your delight at https://soundcloud.com/the-completely-mag-ak47/sets/bradford-roots-music-11th and is actually more than half decent.
Well done to the valiant crew who performed on Sunday night at the prestigious St George's Hall, Bristol - another great night!
Whilst one or two numbers suffered somewhat from impromptu collective amnesia (!) the overall performance was quite outstanding. It was a pretty packed auditorium that greeted us once we emerged from the catacombs and various secret staircases to a slightly unsuspecting and initially bewildered audience.
At first they thought we were a somewhat serious proposition what with our manliness and deep Georgian singing and a fine rendition of Mraval Jamier. We soon put that misapprehension right with an "intermittent" version of Turnip Hoer where we covered up one or two gaps in recollection of the words with just such a brilliant performance with various blokes turning themselves into Yokels before you could say "Joe Wanstrow"!
The first performance of "Shed" went superbly well, especially given the debacle in the snatched run through earlier in the evening, worthy of a World Premier - Roger would be proud. Duct Tape got a great reception, as did Dry Stone Waller's song and Delilah fair near brought the house down. We then thought we had run out of time but the audience loved us so much, and the next act wasn't quite ready, so we were asked to do an "encore" at which we gave possibly the best rendition so far of "And I love her". This was followed by more demands for an encore so we had a team huddle and finally decided to give Concrete a bash. Well, we got it right at the 2nd attempt but by then we had sung our hearts out and given the very appreciative crowd great entertainment.
Match Report
Chris S lead The following blokes
Chris A, Peter B, Bob B, Ken B, Neil B, Nick B, Brian D, Mark F, John G, Mike G, Stuart H, Martin H, Trevor H, Bill H, Alan H, John M, Mike P, Darren S, David T, Mark T, Angus V, Ade W, John W
Who sang the following songs
Mraval
Turnip Hoer's
Shed
Duct Tape
Dry stone waller's
Delilah
John Kanaka
Encore(!)
And I love her
and 2nd Encore (!!!)
Concrete Takes 1 and 2
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