I can’t remember the last time I went out two evenings in one week, and certainly not to rock concerts! But the opportunity was too good to miss.
Fiona has been helping keep my recurrent migraines under some sort of control by giving me a back, neck and shoulder massage every three weeks for the past fifteen or more years. Although I’m technically her client, we’ve become friends over the years. As well as her massage and beauty business, she rents out a self-contained annex in her house on Airbnb, and often chats to me during my treatment session about the “interesting” characters she’s had staying there.
A few weeks ago, she told me about four talented musicians who had rented the apartment for a full week in the depths of low season. It appears that there is a Malvern-based music impresario who manages a number of “tribute bands”. He needs to get the band together for a week’s solid rehearsals before each of their tours of the UK, and hiring rehearsal space somewhere like London is very expensive. However, he’s worked out that he can hire West Malvern Village Hall for a week at a very reasonable price, put the band up in Fiona’s annex, and keep an eye on how rehearsals are going.
There was apparently a mix up over dates this time, and in order to compensate Fiona for the inconvenience he had put her to, he offered her a number of free tickets to the band’s show at the Malvern Theatres on Wednesday night. I expressed an interest, she had plenty of tickets spare, and so I got a complimentary seat to see Credence Clearwater Reimagined, the leading tribute band for the “roots rock” band Credence Clearwater Revival.
The band did a very good job, and sounded remarkably like CCR. I knew several of their classics – Bad Moon Rising, Proud Mary, Suzie Q – and as far as I could tell they were note perfect. They also did a little introduction before most of the numbers, giving a bit of history and context which was interesting, as I knew very little about CCR as a band.
I thought it was funny that, both on Wednesday and last Monday nights, the lead guitarists stood pretty much firmly on the spot, concentrating on their fingering and solos, while the bassists were the most animated and charismatic people on the stage, jumping around and strutting their stuff!
