DOGHOUSE SKIFFLE GROUP - Bickerton Village Hall - 18/3/2006

When Gilly and I set out for this gig, it all seemed like any other Saturday night out to see a band, neither of us could possibly have foreseen the events that were to follow, events that would have long reaching effects on both ourselves, and the other members of the audience, and certainly on the members of the band.... Cue: 999 theme and library footage of ambulances arriving with blue lights flashing etc.....

It had been touch and go whether we got into this one, as it had sold out weeks ago and we hadn't expected to be available, but the chance came up and with a little encouragement from front man Garry, we rolled up at the last minute, waved some money around and we were in - two seats near the back in a packed village hall, lit with quaint coloured light bulbs up in the rafters and tea-lights on the tables. "It's great to back in... Knutsford!" calls Garry from the stage and we're off with "Putting on the Style!" - Bickerton Village Hall piling on the agony! Settling down we enjoyed what is now standard fayre from the DogHouse, good songs, well performed with plenty of laughter in between, and, at times during the songs too! New material has been creeping into the set too: "Bales of Cocaine" and "Jack of Diamonds" for instance.

This was a return visit to Bickerton and many of the audience were connoisseurs, leading to much banter from the floor and Garry having to intervene: "I'll tell you when it's bloody audience participation time OK?!", and later he conceded that the group had now played so many venues around the country that they were in a position to pick and choose where to play based on previous receptions, but that didn't make it an easy ride: "Hey! It's easier to change the venue than the act you know!" he was heard to retort to yet another enthusiastic outburst from the audience.

Come the interval there was a major exodus towards the bar, and then people started returning with plate loads of food - food! Great - and it was cheese and bread and cheese and celery and cheese and tomatoes and cheese and cheese... Before the inevitable raffle was finished, the bread was long gone, but they were still coming round with trays of more cheese! There then followed an auction of ... surplus cheese.

Cue: dramatic music and Michael Burke: "The second half started normally enough, but before long, strange events would start to overtake the band and the audience..."

Maybe there were some early warning signs - "Save the Last Dance for Me" - that lovely romantic oldie was morphed into "By the Rivers of Babylon" early into the second half, then the set list was thrown away so that they could resurrect "The Ballad of Davey Crockett" - last sung many, many years ago, and soon later we had John, who may well have been the local vicar, on stage and joining in on "Rock Island Line" to riotous effect. It was probably all that cheese, there was certainly a hint or two as the word cheese was occurring more and more often in the stories AND the lyrics , Garry managed at one point to perform a link that consisted of a fraction of every other link he had already used, and "Jesse James" became a psychedelic dream with the band incorporating so many other songs into the middle that neither they, nor us, had any idea what would come next, but their rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" seemed to sum it all up! Alan became German for the rest of the night, but Garry and Keith failed to spot that he was trying to count in the next verse in German until he had tried it at least 5 times, and he admitted later that he was more than a little worried about how the audience was coping with all this.....

From where we were sat it was great! The hall had good acoustics and the sound was loud enough yet clear, and the back row was swaying and waving, there was one woman asleep in front of them (we were worried for a while that it had all proved too much for her), and several rather excited (worse the wear from the demon alcohol most likely) women having giggling fits nearby. This was show-biz at its most dangerous, the plan long since abandoned in favour of ad-lib and improvisation, the band played on and on, still playing at 11:25pm when Keith's usual party trick of playing slide guitar with a glass of water was extended to include playing with a wine bottle, and then with a great chunk of... yes - cheddar cheese! It worked too, after a fashion. "Goodnight Irene" closed the set, the audience filed out into the waiting ambulances, many of them probably scarred for life, unable to face any kind of cheese ever again, destined to wake up screaming in the middle of the night when that recurring nightmare strikes again; "Ein, zwei, drei, vier!" yells a voice in an East-Yorkshire-German accent, and three men stumble into "Knees up Mother Brown", "It's songs like that that brought the Luftwaffe to its knees!", "Have you been to Briddlington?", "Did you have a swim...?"

The night the DogHouse went surreal - we know, 'cos we were there and we had one fantastic evening - or was it just a dream induced by too much cheese????

The Doghouse Skiffle Group