Last Tuesday, we played for the staff Christmas do of St Ivo school. It was an intense, compressed affair, sandwiched between the Christmas roast and the local disco. It’s the second time we’ve played this venue this year – the previous one was the Head’s retirement party.
The dancing was enthusiastic, and really quite competent – good stripping the willow in the extended Virginia Reel and the Drops of Brandy. Greg was motivated to produce a couple of new calling jokes, which only happens every decade or so. Lots of screaming and naughtiness though: teachers role-playing Year 9, as usual when they let their hair down.
Here’s Greg modelling the ballroom hold:
We played a few listening sets – old-timey tunes and the Shove the Pig’s Foot set from the CD. Our efforts to sell the CD on the back of this, strongly promoted as a stocking filler, didn’t exactly produce an avid queue of fans …
Still, a pleasant evening in good-humoured company, and we handed over to the disco after a speed of light set of slip jigs for the Drops of Brandy. As usual, all those who’d stared intensely into their beer during the ceilidh leapt onto the floor for It’s Raining Men (Hallelujah!). We struck our PA, dwarfed by the disco’s Glastonburyesque stack, and hit the highway …
The Great Eastern Ceilidh Company 