blowjangles gig guide 2002 season

 
home 2004 season info the band 2003 season

 
 
the mill hill gig 
early doors in the 2002 season with just about the right number of personel in attendance. the walk through the park was fairly uneventful but the blast outside the community centre was pretty good. 

 
the lord mayor's parade in manchester
two sets were in offerance, one, on stage in exchange square and the other in the procession for the lord mayor. we performed sweetly on stage and got a good old reception for the numbers that we performed. the second half of the day was taken up by us walking through the centre of manchester as part of the lord mayor's parade, getting pissed wet through, just hoping that some official would tell us that it was all over and we could go home. - no chance! 
during the parade we wore the mask's that ex member steve had made for us. however, in the horrendous weather conditions paint from the masks started running, giving the wearers a rainbowed appearance. gone, never to return.

 
accrington / ossy / accrington 
all in one day ! a mix up in the booking arrangements meant that we had committed ourselves to two gigs on the same day. like the troupers that we are, we did a set at accrington, then shot over to oswaldtwistle and then back to accrington to do another set. 

 
witton park, blackburn 
nice relaxing day out in the park. what could be better than playing your music, chilling out, laughing and joking in beautiful parkland surroundings on a glorious sunny summer's afternoon - bliss. and to think, we get paid for doing it.

 
"arts in the park", corporation park, blackburn 
a weekend festival of music and arts held at corporation park, blackburn, we were booked to appear on the sunday and were asked to perform two sets. the first one was on stage in the marquee and the second was a parade through the park. it was quite pleasing to be asked to appear at festival, and we gave a performance in keeping with the high level of acts on show. the first set, in the marquee itself went down particularly well, despite our irrational reluctance for static gigs. [our best gigs this year have all been static gigs - food for thought] someone had left the amplification on, so not only were we rocking, we were booming as well. top gig.

 
addlington, near chorley 
not what you would call a great blowjangles gig, certainly one for the fitness fanatic, with a parade that seemed to take us on a guided tour of the whole of east lancashire itself. our liaison officer, lol baxter assured us that the procession route was just over a mile. sorry lol, it was more like a half marathon, but the true professionals that we are, we stuck it out to the bitter end - i'm sure we played iko six times though. a little known highlight was the bungee jump that bill and bernard talked themselves into doing on the fairground later.

 
"the wake" 
the wake had been a long standing booking by a friend of lez, who sadly was dying and had requested the band play at her funeral. when the day eventually came, lez did the honours at the actual funeral itself, whilst an almost full compliment of band members performed at the wake in the evening. the wake was held at church and ossy cricket club with the intention of playing a couple of sets on the cricket field itself. in typical blowjangles fashion, things didn't go exactly as planned as we played the first set entirely in the function room - and went down a storm. we started to play the second set in the room and decided to lead everybody out onto the cricket field, and like some modern day pied pipers, the whole funeral party dutifully followed. what transpired was a truly amazing and memorable gig - undoubtedly the highlight of the season. on returning to the function room to finish off with a couple of numbers, lez was thrown to the ground by a somewhat inebriated woman and was impaled on the dance floor with the said woman sat astride him, leering at him with this maniacal grin on her face.

 
queen's park, blackburn 
apart from the two christmas gigs this was the last outing of the season for blowjangles. a rather low key affair at queen's park, two sets, one static and one on the move rounded the season off nicely. 

 
mercer park, clayton le moors. 
a gentle parade through the streets of clayton le moors - holding up the traffic yet again, it seems to be a blowjangles specialty. this was followed by a couple of plays in mercer park followed by an impromptu jammin' session with poco loco, a drum band who were also in attendance on the day. 

 
suzy Q's 
december 27th and a rare indoor gig at suzy Q's in darwen saw us on a bill headlined by gone beggin. playing two sets to a sell out house with a limited band presence was quite daunting, but aided by several scoops of alcohol and some fine performances especially from rob, blow jangles were well received. 

 
rochdale 
nice sunny day and the task was to be part of the mela parade from the outskirts of rochdale into the centre and back again. simple, straightforward, a piece of cake some might say. oh no, not for blowjangles ! the problem was that the centre of rochdale lies at the bottom of a very steep drake street. the chosen route for the procession was, right to the bottom of drake street, around the roundabout, then back up the very very steep drake street. as we were at the back of the procession, we could see the pained expressions on the faces of the people at the front who were climbing back up drake street. anyway, when we reached the roundabout, our (ex!)bandleader just carried on into the market square leaving the rest of the procession to go on it's merry way. however, conscience set in, and the sight of musicians running up drake street to catch up with the procession was quite amusing.

 
clitheroe 
early season gig which involved playing in the market place in clitheroe and then going on to provide entertainment on a few of the street corners in the town. spotted doing a busk in the town was our sometime leader, paeder. 
bernard the busker at clitheroe

 
the blackburn busk 
our traditional annual blackburn busk prior to our christmas bash saw us freezing our nuts off [or nutettes] in the first part of the gig. we had placed ourselves under the christmas tree outside marks and spencer - a real wind tunnel if ever there was one ! after one number it was impossible to feel the keys on the instruments, it really was that cold. suffice to say, we quickly adjourned to o'neills for some liquid refreshment and a thaw out. the second part of the busk was in the relative shelter of debenhams entrance. half an hour later, aided by brian and roxanne, ["keepers of the bucket"] we emerged with about sixty quid - nice work if you can get it. it was then on to goodfellas in the evening, where a fine night was had by all. roll on next christmas.

 
the one that got away 
such is our popularity, [or notoriety] we were given the opportunity to perform at the sporting event of 2002. 
we were asked to play at the commonwealth games in manchester, but sadly we were not able to give the commitment that was asked of us. the organizers wanted us to play in the athletes' village every day of the games. being working lads and lasses, we couldn't muster enough of the troops to fulfill this rather prestigious booking. a missed opportunity that sadly will never come again.
a sunny afternoon in the park - witton park blackburn

sometimes good
sometimes bad
sometimes fun
sometimes not so
always blowjangles
 
 
back to top