The Nags Head – Rocking on a Sunday Afternoon – Review

Posted by TTBoom on Jun 9, 2015 in Blog | 0 comments

Still nursing the blisters from our outing at the Unwanted MCC and just a couple of days later we were metaphorically back on our bikes and arriving on Sunday afternoon at the good old Nags Head in Ripley.  Situated on Butterley Hill, the venue is an imposing Georgian fronted building painted white with red window sills and doors, you certainly can’t miss it.  We were due to kick off at 6pm and so I planned to get there early, in a vain attempt to beat Glen and also to give plenty of time to set up, after all is was Sunday.   Getting there at about 4.50 and pulled into the car park of the Butterley Hill Club opposite, I discover Glen parking up having already offloaded all his kit.  Foiled again, note to self, set off day before if you want to beat Glen.

Anyway after a few shuttle runs across the road with Glen’s help I got all my kit in too.  We were soon joined by John, Mark and Mick, who had had the foresight to park up outside the pub to offload.   So we soon had piles of gear spread out around the stage area, ready for us to start  assembling the complex puzzle.

The stage area in The Nags is pretty small and to get a 5 piece in with all the gear takes a bit of thinking about.  The dartboard was now obscured by a couple of black curtains and a couple of hooks had been installed on the back wall to allow for backdrop hanging,  a nice little touch.  After a bit of jiggery pokery  we managed to get everyone in with some clever positioning of the PA speakers and helped by John tucking himself as far back into the corner as possible.

The stage is served by 2 double sockets, 1 behind the curtain on the dartboard wall and the other stage left in the alcove next to the chimney breast.  Once the monitors were in place and we had set up the desk and light, there was just enough room to squeeze in, although Glen had the least space and Mick was teetering on the edge of the steps.

During set up there were very few in the place, just a few playing dominoes as was usual for a Sunday,  we weren’t  too concerned as we had had a pretty good response to our advertising, however is was Sunday and the sun was shining the most we had seen this year so you never know.

After a short while sunning ourselves in the back yard with a drink or two, we got on with it and did our thing.  The place was beginning to fill up and by the time we had reached half way through the first set the bar was getting pretty full,  our good friend Barry Roberts had come down to make a video and our old singer from a previous line up Siggy popped in and took a few still  shots, which have since been published on  FB, I’m betting most of you have seen them by now and would agree they were amazing.

Through the second set the crowd had grown even further, I can only assume people were putting the word out, but whatever the reason we were grateful, as we just love playing to a receptive crowd, it makes it all worth while.   Amongst   the crowd were so many faces we recognised and it felt like we were at home with all our friends.  Well done you Boomers.

It was quite hot and  sweaty with the sun blazing down outside, but we enjoyed every minute of it.  Thanks to all who came down to join in the fun you were amazing.  We will be back as we have been booked for a couple more gigs back later in the year and early next year.  See you all again soon.