The Dawn Chorus / The Retrospective Soundtrack Players - Blogging all over the World

CCLXXI - Leeds, Fox and Newt
15/02/14

Ben Marwood
The Retrospective Soundtrack Players
Helen Chambers
Joe McCorriston

Woke in a truly horrid state in a Travelodge in Cheltenham.  The mood was not improved by a monumentally bad breakfast in a Harvester restaurant next door to the T-lodge.  Ben decided not to join us for breakfast, wisely choosing a few hours' escape from our endless mad bants and in-jokes.

We then decided to find the cars, parked at the previous night's venue, by foot.  It was nice to have a bit of fresh air, but we were pretty much just walking in and endless trail of eachother's hung-over farts.  But eventually we found the cars, and after half an hour of Kelv trying to find his lost phone (this happens most gigs) we set off to Leeds.  One of the party was sick into their own hands at a service station somewhere in the midlands.  I think this was the lowest moment of the day.

The gig in Leeds was even better than the night before, once we'd got past the overpowering smell of frying burgers upstairs where the live music was.  Joe and Helen were great, and we blew away any lingering cobwebs of the morning's hangover to play one of our best ever shows.  The singing along to Ben's set was possibly the most passionate I've heard, and we had a great time backing Ben up on 2 or 3 songs from his set too.

Afterwards we hung out with our Leeds chum Charlie Barnes, and when we were all in the chippy something something monumental happened - Marwood became the first person ton complete the 'Pauly A Pauly B' game.  What's this game, you ask? It works thusly: over a reasonably brisk beat (usually provided via the mouth of another player) you must simply rap the words: 'Pauly A, Pauly B, Pauly C, Pauly D....' until you either get to Pauly Z, run out of breath or make a mistake.  It's much harder than it sounds, indeed nobody had completed it up until today.  We all went bonkers in the chippy, then went home (Travelodge) to bed.