St Annes Castle

So we had the car written off, the night of the Mother 333 gig, did I tell you about that? Just hours before sound check a big grey van rear-ended us, we had to cancel the gig as we were strapped to back boards and head braces in Lewisham Hospital. It’s not important, the point is we played out in Essex on the 13th March and our friend Ron lent us his car, without which this remarkable evening would not have been possible.

Just a bit south of Chelmsford, in classic old Essex country St Annes Castle is a very old pub and a very friendly pub. The combination of a pre-tudor building with an indie edge was totally compelling. Have you ever walked into a place and just felt euphoric? It felt like each person who’d had a good time there had left just a trace of that pleasure with the building, and as the building is HUNDREDS of years old it is overflowing with good times.

We played an acoustic night normally hosted by Lizzie B, for this one night Lyz LeFay was hosting. We stepped up to the bar and made our orders, 2 pints of various bitters, the barman was sharp as an arrow, sample this bitter, try that bitter, I love it when that happens – I’m a bitter fan and I do appreciate an appreciator. Before Jim had had chance to get his wallet out our host Lyz was there with Dave buying our drinks, as they did ALL night. There’s a lot of detail here which I’m not going to go into, but believe me that night we experienced open hearted generosity all evening, and those locals blew us away.

The gig then… Andy McKay opened the night with some solid songwriting and impressive, experimental vocals. And then came us, a short set of 25 mins

Excuse Me
Emilie
Don’t Make Me Wait - At about this stage one of the chaps at the bar, took his hat off and started getting people to empty their wallets into it. This was totally unprompted, we hadn’t been introduced to this man, he’d just decided this was the right thing to do! This was a free night as far as we were concerned; we were doing it for music’s sake and for the kind invitation and here was a stranger making sure we went home financially better off (thank you Clive)
Nobody Else
Alright
And Silvertown - Dave Le Fay made a request for this, and my heart melted to see the two of them hugging each other throughout the song, Dave leaning on Lyz, Lyz leaning on Dave, arms so tightly wrapped you just know there’s something very right there.

And we were done, aaaahhhh.

Jim had to catch a flight out early the next day (a drum session in San Fransisco (you curious minds) so we had to go, though we couldn’t help but stay for half a pint and half of Strider’s Led Zep set. We did not want to leave, we were singing along. Lyz was due to play next and that is always beautiful, but we did have to bale. I got the chance to shake hands with Dave the landlord and driving force behind St Annes. And now I’d like to thank, Lyz & Dave, Andy on sound and anyone who’s ever had a good time at St Annes Castle X