Ghosts in the machine

Eltham Palace… is a ‘venue’. I mean, wow! It really is something else… from the bond-villain style art deco round room, to the imposing great Hall where Henry and Elizabeth probably presided over court. Last night, The Love Junkies plus performed to a ruby wedding crowd at one of London’s finest heritage sites.

Souped up, turbo charged, 8 piece line-up with twice as many musicians as usual. With the regulars, plus Neil and Jules on Brass, Doug on joint lead vocal and Sgt. Big Dog Doble back in the keyboard seat, this has to be our fave line-up of the band. It’s just so cool playing when it’s, well bigger.

The gig? I think possibly one of our finest hours, though very nearly wasn’t to be. First up Andee’s Bass guitar stopped working. Further inspection, changing batteries and active circuitry inspected revealed nothing out of the ordinary – it just simply didn’t work any more. “Okay, no bother, still got enough time to send out for a substitute bass guitar”, which is what we did (heartfelt thanks Chris Wong).

Funky Music Solo Section!

Next, Andy’s keyboard amp just lost power. Nothing could be done to bring it back to life. We had to re-route through a spare wedge. Finally, Dave’s guitar amp starting crackling like finest suckling pig on a spit. Three songs in though and a warm up managed to coax it back to life, but it really was touch and go.

So, ghosts in the machine? Perhaps the patrons of olde like not the stylings of soul? Forsooth, a madrigal would be better? Whatever, once we finally got up and running we played for 2 hours and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

Tonight saw the introduction of two new Jacko songs, ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Blame it on the Boogie’. Really pleased with how they sounded and good job all on getting the parts and sounds down as close to the original. Also ‘(Your love keeps lifting me) Higher and Higher’ by Jackie Wilson. Sweet, sweet.

Really lovely crowd too. Without wishing to blow our own (or Neil’s) trumpet, we shall leave it to our hirers, Simon and Sandie to wax thus with this lovely note.

Thank you for providing such amazing music for our party on Saturday. We were delighted with your professionalism and enthusiasm and were just rather sad when it all had to end. Our guests thought you were incredible; many people said: “Where did you get the band, they are fantastic.” Strong similarities to ‘The Commitments’ were mentioned.

Also, because you started later than we had hoped due to the speeches, we were pleased to see that you fitted in much more music from your 10:00 start and took a shorter break between sessions.

It was a pleasure to work with you in the months leading up to the event. You were so accommodating and we were really pleased we had added on the extra male singer and the brass section. Each and every one of the musicians worked incredibly hard to give us the best time and the number of people who were on the dance floor right up to the end of the evening is testament to how good you all are.