RETURN TO BARN-DANCES

Ah! Finally! The return of gigs for the barn-dance band!

It’s been sixteen months since we performed, so getting back on the road would be nervy and exciting for all of us. Would Matt’s sound equipment still work? Would the mice have eaten holes in Tom’s drum cases? Would my fingers find the same old shapes along the keyboard?

It turned out that the answers to all those questions would have to wait. As would we, for ages, in the stuffy function room of the Royal Winchester Hotel.

It was a wedding, and it was doing that thing that a lot of weddings just can’t help doing; running over. They’d booked us for an 8pm start, giving us plenty of room to set up while they sat downstairs for the speeches. The plan was, after a few short hilarious anecdotes, they’d all come up and start dancing.

A muffled voice sounded like he was giving an interminable lecture into a microphone. A smattering of applause, a light chinking of a hundred glasses, and a cheer. Then back to the voice, or perhaps a different voice, who can tell, indistinct and dull through the floorboards. It was 9:15pm. I sat on the carpet, back scratching against an uncomfortable skirting board. I was so bored.

“Three more speeches apparently,” chimed the DJ, pacing about. He was unmistakably a wedding DJ: mid-fifties, floral shirt, smart black trousers and shiny black shoes. His portable decks, topped with two digital mirror-balls, were throwing crystals of light around the room while he walked through them - a sort of decorated dance floor king in a kingdom of oak beams and sloping carpet.

“And they haven’t even gone for coffee!”

Matt was fiddling with his mics and Tom was trying to be friendly from behind the drums. I was quiet, mask on, strangely not wanting to engage.

On the whole, weddings aren’t the best gigs for barn dance bands. They tend to be boozy, silly affairs, booked to be ironic, or ‘a bit of fun’ while everybody’s blotto. It’s a long way from the typical ceilidh-crowd of folk fanatics, and the wedding caller always has a tricky balance to strike.

No surprises then that when she appeared, one of the guests said she’d find waltzing difficult because she was so dizzy. And, not wanting to judge, I don’t think the uneven Seventeenth century floor was entirely to blame.

It was around 9:40pm when we finally got underway. We struck a deal with the DJ that we’d stop at 10:30 and let him disco out the last thirty minutes, but until then it was dozey-dos and right-hand-stars all the way.

As the room filled up and the crowd of well-dressed guests stumbled in to the music, I did start to wonder about capacities. How many people could this old room take? Presumably it was designed for travellers resting on their long journey from Southampton to London, complete with wide windows looking out onto the stables. Discos and posh barn-dances were probably a recent development. Could it take a hundred people? I thought not.

I wondered it even further when the long chain of people swirled round so that the top couple were dancing about six inches away from the keyboard. As they hopped and skipped by, the floor shook, and the speaker next to me started swaying.

I’d forgotten about Covid too. That came back to me in a rush in the middle of the Farmer’s Jig. It was nice to remember playing in pre-covid times, yes. It was even nicer to have a moment where I forgot that was ever a thing. But in between sets I quietly slipped my face mask back on. Because it is a thing. And there were a lot of people there, suddenly, taking their partners by the hand and letting the germs basket-weave their way around a wedding.

So that was the first gig back. 10:30 came around, the DJ put on ‘My First, My Last, Everything’ by Barry White, and by the time he’d got to the Beegees we were packed up and ready to go home. Soon enough, the dark road flashed with white lines and the radio came alive with late night callers.

I don’t mind it. I’ve even missed it. I was even home just after midnight, and to be honest, it’s been later from one of these things. Tired and a little bit hungry, I fumbled my keys into the lock and went inside for a long sleep.