Photos of Suzie Walker's 50th gig

All photos taken by John Steane

Martin Apsey's first gig with The Sprigs'

          The obligatory "where's the drummer?" photo

                                  Max rockin with her new Les!

                                                             

 Rockin .....

 still rockin

 and some more

The New line up!

 Artura on stage in Faery Queen

 Suzie is on far right!

Great night!

Road Rage, Head butts, Crushed fingers? , Just another Spriggan Mist gig!

You couldn't make it up if you tried. I have been accused of embroidering the truth on these pages more times than I care to mention but the tale I embark on today in the word of Angelica Pickles is the " Truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me Bob."

Now if you are back from googling Angelica Pickles I will explain…….

We were playing at a 50th birthday celebration at The Bedford in Balham, South London so we loaded up the  Sprigmobile (six seater crew cab Tranny). The party was Max and I John and Bex, Aaron our 11 year old and Martin.Colin our drummer prefers to travel on his own, for reasons which after reading this blog will become apparent why


 So the afternoon started with John our Roady, driver, photographer , soundman , and general all round hero leaning down to pick up something that needed picking up at the same time Aaron our 11 year old son, video , lighting, roady type person  leaned down to pick up the same  said item which needed to be picked up and promptly in Laurel and Hardy  style bumped heads with John ……much to the amusement of Sprigs' Recorder Cellist Diva Bex who had a self admitted monk on , who chuckled with laughter  as Coco and Biffo rubbed their heads…cheering her up no end. I wonder what we need to do when she really has a strop on ….decapitation maybe? ….yes that will really be a hoot and make her roar …..!

But this was an important gig . It was Martin our new guitarist's first one with us  so we swung by his place with John driving the Sprigmobile  picked up our new axeman and his amp and weapons of choice and before you know it we were trundling towards Balham..To be fair the journey was uneventful until we got to Wandsworth. The Sat Nav told John to go right …but it didn't tell him about the man mountain of a cyclist in all dark clothing and no lights that decided to overtake The Sprigmobile  and to be fair John did see him last minute and a catastrophe was averted. The cyclist however was not amused and followed us into a turning that the Satnav hadn't told us to go down and like an annoying wasp around your ice cream this cyclist wasn't going away.. intent on arguing the toss with us. John gestured him with his thumb to "jog on" …with this the mad bloke started furiously cycling after us around the back streets of Wandsworth.John tried to shake him..but he would catch us up on the junctions and then we'd pull away and he'd peddle like the clappers to catch us up again . Hats off to him  he kept with us for a good 5 minutes …John considered heading for the motorway to see how well he'd do  then but we eventually  stopped and out I stepped to speak with a fully  juiced "Lance Armstrong"….and what a sight it must have been  me in full Sprigs' stage wear complete with tails stepping out of the van to confront a very red faced  and sweating  6ft 3 shaved headed Londoner with the obligatory Chelsea manager's coat on. Between the two of us John and I managed to persuade this bloke that John wasn't gesticulating to him that he had a masturbation problem  and that everything was cool and hand shakes ruled the day. So with strict instructions not to, a) kill any cyclists and b) not wind up any more of the Local  community, John fired Sprigmobile up again.

We did the gig Martin came through flying colours, and as I loaded up the van at the end of the night I thought to myself finally we have a guitarist that can play good , looks the part and we would happily have a pint with, happy days! ….with the van loaded Martin and I were the last to jump in the Sprigmobile. Me in the front  happily slamming my door not knowing that Martin whilst getting into the back behind me  had his hand on the door stantion. He said "AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

My heart sank  as I lead our new guitarist back into the venue in understandable pain. It sank further when due to that pain Martin passed out in the toilets where we were applying cold water then ice. After getting his colour back and threatening to shove my mobile in my nether orifice if I even thought about taking and posting a photo on Facebook he came to and we were on the road again. After that we had to deal with Aaron fainting too which resulted in us making off without paying for a bottle of water from a nearby Italian restaurant . 

On a positive note…thankfully it appears Martin has no broken bones and he'll be back shredding it up soon.


Colin as dry as ever upon hearing of his bandmates plight came out with these gems ... 

" At least he can't give you the finger" and
"Now you know why I travel in my own car"