Another fab night at Bowood Gold and Country club to celebrate Karen and Steve's wedding (suprise party?). Performed a complete set with our usual professional alacrity and managed to get most people up and dancing for the 2nd set, which rocked out til around about 15 minutes past midnight. This gave the disco guys a chance to play some of the Abba requests that had been thrown at us during our performance. We really should learn Dancing Queen (not!). Fantastic crowd of friendly people, great atmosphere! Congrats again to Karen and Steve.

This was a 50th Birthday party for the Director of coaching for the Olympic Diving team Kim White, (Top Bombing). Held at the impressive Bowood Golf and Country Club. We put on a strong performance for both sets opening with Ruby for both of them at Kim's request. We managed to persuade Kim to sing along at the start of the 2nd set and were very impressed with his performance, particularly the chorus. Not so sure about the backing singers he dragged along, but it all added to a fun evening. Shame that Chesney couldn't  make the party!
Further congrats to Kim and to all the qualifiers (particulary the 13 year old Thomas Daley) for the Beijing Olympics Diving team- a truly impressive result. Good luck in Beijing. Further congrats to Kim and Wendy on the birth of Cory.

This Cancer Relief gig was arranged following our stunning (!) performance at the Lock Keeper. We got to the pub at between 5 and 7 on the Saturday night, and had to fit in setting up, chinese curry and Strictly Come Dancing before the Rugby Semi Final at 8! 

Needless to say, with seamless organisation, we managed to achieve all and even though the venue was very small we settled in to watch the match. We won but i had a slight issue after as my voice was a bit sore after shouting at the telly for 2 hours! 

We rocked through our sets with the locals complaining we were a bit too loud but Nick likes loud. He is in control of the desk and he knows best!!! It was hot in there though! A few of the locals decided to get a bit naked at one point which is always good and the Hen Party that were there thought we were able to do 'I Will Survive' and 'Its Raining Men' at any moment they asked. 

We managed to raise £414 in total which isn't a bad amount for one nights work! Thanks to the Concorde, their staff and the punters for their generosity. 

We even managed to get home at a reasonable hour and get some sleep. However, my ears bled as always due to Guitar Monkey's inability to hear his own stack from three feet away. He 'claims' drummer Monkey's cymbal is too loud! Ahhh...................

Big love as always

RichXXXXXXX

This promised to be a great night/weekend for the Monkey's. I (stupidly!) offered to drive all the guys apart from Ro (he had a wedding to go to afterwards). Two hours after setting out from home we hit the M5 northbound for Herefordshire after visiting the butt end of Bath and Bristol for the boys. 

We got there with no problems just 20 minutes late for the start of Englands Rugby World Cup fixture with Samoa. Drivey Monkey Andy and the lovely Jane were already there with all our gear (huge thanks as always to Remstor and Andy). We set up after the game in the Marquee the party was due to take place in with few problems and a nice big stage. 

We retired to our lovely B&B for a quick freshen up, and returned at 8ish for our free beer and pork rolls! Steve and Nick decided to make use of the free pork and proceeded to try to eat the whole pig on their own. They would have succeeded if a small matter of a gig hadn't got in the way. 

We rocked out for our 2 hour + stint to the party goers. The audience was a little unsure of the dance steps but much fun seemed to be had by all. A wide variety of paying charity supporters were present and lots of support was given to both us and the bar!

Chris, our organiser and host seemed to be very pleased with the turnout and much cash was raised for his very worthy cause and mission to India. 

We arranged cabs back to our B&B - which was an interesting trip in itself! The so called 6 seater taxi actually was a four seater with 2 milk crates and a couple of cushions in the boot!!! Slow to arrive drummer and keyboard Monkeys drew the short straws and proceeded to have their asses badly bruised as the less than charitable driver gave us a very good impression of the Lombard rally through the back roads of Herefordshire. I think he was paying us back for earlier in the evening as we kept him waiting for a whole 10 minutes when he picked us up. We managed to keep smiling as always and ignored his attempts to show us the true Bromyard greeting from a cabbies perspective!

We got back to a fantastically 'hot' reception room, as our landlady had set up a lovely log fire which promptly sent all the older members of the band asleep. Well, all of us actually! Nick and I thought we would attempt a triple summersault on the heeyooge trampoline in the garden but decided we were both too hammered and it was too wet. 

We awoke to a perfect cooked breakfast on the Sunday morning and a gentle trip back to the south west. We decided it was a top weekend for the boys and vowed to do it again sometime soon, provided the taxi's at our next venue have some valid insurance and proper seats!!!

Anyone out there fancy putting us up for a stay-away gig soon???

Hugs

RichXXXXXXX

Well Hi again Monkey fans! 

This was a strangely interesting gig at our fave pub (honestly Miranda). Not least because of the weather. It was THAT friday when the monsoon hit central Britain. It lashed it down with rain constantly in the area for about 6 hours. I was playing golf in Bristol in the morning and got somewhat wet! I ambled carefully back down the M4 at middayish and boy was it serious stuff even then. By the time i went to drop my gear off at the ever supportive and brilliant Remstor in Chippenham I couldn't manage to get there without some careful negotiation of big floody puddles. 

In the evening when i was getting picked up by Chris B, we struggled to get out of my village as the floods were all around! Little did we know that Drummer Monkey was having even worse problems! He was in London and we set up without him and put together the drum kit beautifully. Sound checking was out as he is by far the loudest person in the band so we did the only thing we could - we drank some beer! 

After much travelling fun via Reading, Basingstoke, Salisbury, Westbury and Derry Hill, Drummer Monkey finally turned up around 9.30pm. We promptly got on stage and ran through our first set which rocked. Good job too as the few that had made it over were getting impatient. 

At half time we downed another couple and then rocked out through our second set including a new cover of Coldplay's 'White Shadows' which worked - apparently. I certainly had a great time and I hope those there did too. Sound on stage was a little difficult to hear as as always Guitar Monkey was TOO LOUD!!!! Front of house though was superb due as always to Sound Monkey, Nick who rocks and is a real hardcore Monkey now. 

I think a great time was had by all, I think I rolled into me (oh so lovely and welcoming) bed at about 3.30am and fell fast asleep dreaming of flooded stages and late Monkeys. 

Huge thanks as always to Nick and Andy from Remstor. You guys are the best and make sure all our gear arrives safely and help with the hardest roadie jobs of all. We love you as well cos we can all drink a couple of pops too. Huge thanks as well to Sound Monkey Nick who as always remains calm, cheerful and makes us sound better than we really are ! And finally, thanks to Miranda and the staff at the White Hart who seem to enjoy our nights there almost as much as we do. Miranda was on stage again singing a duet with................ well anyone that wanted to sing with her really. Big hugs to you too!

See ya in Bromyard in September - or maybe Bristol for a Cancer Research gig the week before. Keep watching, we may slide a couple of cool gigs in before then as well. I am off now to Italy (I think), keep the faith and watch out for the mind police.

RichXXXXX

Well this was a night for the lads! We luckily were able to persuade Nick from RemStor in Chippenham to provide a van and fantastic Driver (Cheers Andy!) for the evening. It makes our lives so much easier and adds to the fun for us as we can all have a bevvy or two. We got to the venue at 5.00pm to set up and the weather looked bad for an outdoor gig. 

After waiting to decide where we were to set up and for Steve to arrive we got to work. We set up high on the veranda area outside the back of the pub which gave us a great view of the garden and the thronging masses. Setting up came with the normal abuse aimed at whoever was in earshot as we busily sorted our bits out. Nick our amazing sound engineer smiled through the whole scene and kept us on the clock. (He had to be away at 6.30pm post sound check, to set up another gig in Bristol!). 

2 hours, several beers and a few humungously ginormous burgers later we were ready to rock. We ripped into our set, put together by Steve for a change which made the whole thing fresher and more interesting for us. At half time we were feeling good. Friends and colleagues had arrived to swell the crowd and the normal comments and so called support came forth (thanx Billy!) 

By the second set we were getting well into it, guitar licks were tripping out and even drum endings were crisp and wholesome! Well, I thought they were but I was a few Bombardier's down by that stage. We ended with my normal favourites, the slow ones that are mostly about vocals (!!! only joking guys) before doing Bye Bye Johnny to blast out with. The crowd had stayed mostly till the end and we raised nearly £300 for Cancer Research which was the point of the whole gig in the first place. 

The audience seemed to have a good time, including the Pirates and we came off stage for our normal couple more drinks and back slapping moments. Amazingly the weather had pretty much held all evening with even a drop of the orange stuff appearing later on. Then the normal misery of packing down which is always easier when slightly the worse for wear and with willing helpers. We were slightly disappointed with the overall takings and felt the Lock Keeper folks could have done slightly more to help collect cash at the bar. They also promised a donation in return for our no fee agreement but that is still yet to arrive! Come on guys, it's for Charity right??

Anyway, we headed back to our beds at 1.00amish and Mr Burrows and I chewed the fat until gone 4 but thats rock 'n' roll ain't it? Huge thanx as always to Nick (sound) and Andy (Van) and all our loyal long suffering supporters, we love you all!

Till next time

Hugs

RichXX

The Monkeys where out in Bath last night, supporting the Bath Rugby Community Foundation, A big thanks to all at Bath Rugby who made us very welcome, beer and water supplies being brought on stage whilst playing, what more could you ask. Four bath players joined the band to sing "turning japanese" which went down well with the crowd, and Matt Stevens belted out a solo performance of My Way, what a voice. A storming rock set had the crowd dancing from the first song, in the magnificent Guidhall banqueting suite. Hopefully loads of money raised for the the foundation, and a good night was had by all.

Monkey See Monkey Do