9. Mike Sidaway Music Entertainment: The Evening Sunset Sessions (Wednesday 29th April 2020)

Summary: 9. Today's Episode People Pleasing Music Company Ltd (incorporating Publishing and Management) in association with Authentic Promotions Agency, Enigma Artistes Internacional, Surreal Events, Angry House Productions and Derek Chiswick Management presents a: Mike Sidaway Music Entertainment Production The Evening Sunset Sessions: Wednesday 29th April 2020   Evening is the new morning... Mike is feeling a little nervous this evening.  It's understandable.  A brand new time slot: evening.  Mike has never performed in the evening before.  So, it really feels like a proper 'gig'. Evening is the time for gigs.  Not mornings.  "Singing should be banned in the morning.  Well - definitely yours Mr Sidaway!"  Derek is, of course, just kidding. Derek's here again this evening, as a continual, reassuring presence, to support his young protege, Mike, and give him some much needed confidence before the curtains open and Mike enters the stage with the very creaky-looking dusty lighting rig with its four alternating, flashing lights (red, blue, green and yellow) illuminating his face and making him squint approximately every 4.7 seconds (he really must get around to having a word with Clive, the stage manager, to ask him to re-position the red one and angle it away from his eye-line). "Quite a mammoth set this evening Mr Sidaway." Derek noted. "Eleven songs?" he continued.  "It's just too much.  You're not ready for that Mr Sidaway.  I know you're eager to please and eager to show everyone what you can do.  But just pace yourself.  You don't wanna break your back.  Take it easy.  And, as they say, leave the audience wanting more..." Derek knew about taking it easy.  You had to.  In Derek's day, payment would invariably consist of sharing a plate of sandwiches and a small quiche between the four band members.  And that was on a good day.  Now, the timing and break situation was where it got interesting.  Musicians, back then, would have to perform for over three hours, and they were lucky if they got even a five-minute break.  So you had to be clever.  You had to think on your feet.  You had to survive.  You would do anything to survive.  Musicians, back then, would have to employ any number of interesting and intriguing techniques and excuses to literally 'drag out' the time in between songs and get some time off in between songs to make up for the break-time that they felt there were entitled to.  So, they would use any number of things - yes, the easy, obvious ones like a different member of the band needing a toilet break...or a cigarette break (you can't play the saxophone with smoke coming out the horn...).  And of course there was the old, 'Dave just needs to nip to the car to get a cable,' etc (he might turn up 15 minutes later, most likely without the cable).  But as well as those familiar excuses, you had the interesting ones, the really quite bizarre ones, the surreal ones, even the extra-terrestrial ones.  It really was quite ingenious the sheer number of brand new excuses and stories that the band would invent, think of, concoct, dream up, just to get 'a little breaver' and extract some 'time off' from the contracted engagement time.  It was almost a kind of competition between band members to see who could come up with the most ridiculous, whilst still bordering-on-the-believable, excuse to exit the stage for a well-earned rest and a couple of fags.  On one memorable occasion, Brian, the Bass player, managed to convince the club steward that an Alien craft had landed in the field behind his house the night before, and that the 'being' had specifically requested him to meet him in the field the following night at exactly 9.22pm for a quick and painless medical procedure that would lead to lifelong immunity from 85% of Asian-pacific diseases.  Even the quite nasty ones...like Yellow Fever...The club steward, apparently, fell for the whole tale, Brian left at just after 9pm (during the middle of a song) to make it to the field for 9.22pm, Dave had to quickly fill-in the missing Bass on his Synth, Brian returned to the club well after 10 (with a wire coat-hanger fashioned on a hat) and the band had a good laugh about the whole thing over a crate of beer later that night... Times have changed.  It's not like that anymore... In some ways, the Community hall was a a throw-back to those days and those old social clubs from the 1970s.  It certainly looks and feels like it.  The dusty, creaky lighting-rig, for one thing, has seen better days and doesn't look like it's felt the pleasing moistness of a damp cloth since 1978.  Or an electrician for that matter.  The whole hall is probably just one big death-trap waiting to happen: waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting, unlucky bugger who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time... Still, Mike has more pressing issues to worry about.  It's evening.  An evening performance.  Evening-time feels like a proper gig.  It has a certain feeling and atmosphere.  And there are definitely a few people in the audience tonight, waiting in anticipation of some decent entertainment.  A decent 'turn'.  Those old fellas are there again.  'Somebody likes you Mr Sidaway...I like you.  Don't worry.  Go and do your fing.  And - break a leg Mr Sidaway.  Break a leg..."   Songs Today The Lady Is A Tramp, Frank Sinatra Sister Golden Hair, America Happy, Pharrell Williams (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover, Vera Lynn (request) Yellow, Coldplay Such A Night, Michael Bublé Amazing, George Michael Lay Down Sally, Eric Clapton Rhinestone Cowboy, Glen Campbell September, Earth, Wind And Fire Mack The Knife, Bobby Darin   Thanks to our team -  Sound:  Nathan Production Team:  Beryl, Betty, Deidre, Doris, Ethel, Elsie, Evelyn, Blanche, Fred, Irene, Ken, Mabel, Mavis, Pearl, Phyllis and Reg. PodCast Editor:  Brian   *Thank you very much for downloading and listening to this Podcast.  Hope you enjoyed it, and hope to see you soon for the next one...