Mine and Dean’s night started with a knock at the door. Jamie Burney, kindly offering a lift to the venue. #winning.
A swig of coffee (for me), a vape (for dean), and some more cat food in the bowl (for Jamie) and we were ready to folk our socks off (for folkies always wear socks… Even with sandals. Do not ask, for we do not know).
The session is hosted in the top room at the Banner Cross pub. Where they got the name for the folk club is anyone’s guess. Anyway. The room is beautiful, plenty of places to sit and stand (which ended up being a good thing). Beautiful wooden floors and beautiful wooden tables that me and Dean would have loved to have taken home, were we able to sneak them downstairs, past the bar full of people and the landlord… I know this isn’t a blog on interior design, but it makes for great acoustics, even when the room is full.
We gave Charley (MC) a squeeze as she wrote our name on ‘the list’. We waited eagerly for Sign of a Teaspoon to arrive.
Having spent half an hour before we set off, taping my stickers down on my mandolin case (not very good stickers really…) I stood and admired Ian’s Uke case, adorned with many stickers (well, as many as one can fit on such a small case). The one that caught my attention the most was ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’ and I mused over how small said fascists might have to be.
The night kicked off promptly at 8:30pm with floor singers. Kootch took their place with the others as floor singers. Some chose to sing Christmas music, others chose to sing about children dying in mines (Yes, okay, that was us). The room slowly started to get more and more full as Charley’s page nearly set on fire with the furious speed she was having to write names. At one point, there were approx. 50 people in there. Standing, sitting, singing. This is an absolute testament to how good Richard, Katy and Ian are.
Half time was called and raffle tickets were bought. All money from the raffle is given to the artists at the end of the night. So, not only do you get to see an amazing gig, you also get a chance to win some prizes! Floor spots again, and some lucky devils got to perform twice! Then the band was invited back to play us out.
Now, you might think that the most bizarre part of seeing an 80’s synth pop band… On ukuleles, is that you are, in fact, watching an 80’s synth pop band… On ukuleles. Alas this is not the case. As the picture clearly shows, for the last song, we were, actually, given a child’s octopus to play as percussion for their final song. We especially enjoyed this and wished that more people would give us children’s Octopi to play as percussion. The urban legend, known only as ‘Pat the Hat’ then grabbed several people and dragged them up to dance, causing both laughter and joyous dad-dancing.
To conclude. Sign of a Teaspoon are fantastic. Not just a tight knit band, but genuinely warm and caring people to boot. We didn’t stop smiling and dancing all the way through their set. We like that they can’t be put in a box and we like that they wouldn’t want to be. My sign of a Teaspoon sticker now sits proudly beneath the magical unicorn of music, on my mandolin case. There it shall stay as a reminder - when we need a sign that we shouldn’t conform, our sign, will be of a Teaspoon.
Just in case any of you missed us, and you're partial to a fluff up or two, here we are: