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UK Monkees Event A Triumph
I’d like to send a huge thank-you to everyone who came along and made
the UK Tribute to Davy Jones such a marvellous success on Saturday.
The pub was packed and the atmosphere was amazing. There was a huge
amount of warmth and love and a desire to honour and to celebrate all
that David meant to us Monkees fans.
The evening started with a short speech paying tribute to David and
his many achievements, and to ask that we all try and use the evening
to celebrate his life and work, on the basis that we felt he would
want everyone to have a great time.
Then Iain Lee took to the stage and entertained the crowd with a
fantastic five minutes of ad-libbed comedy, before serenading us with
a version of Rainy Jane on his ukelele
He then introduced The Shorty Blackwells and we performed our 1st set.
Thanks to the listers here, I had plenty of authentic Davy jokes to
do, and to our great delight, the Monkee loving crowd would throw out
the punchlines to the jokes they knew.
The songs went down really well. The 1st set comprised
1 Monkee’s Theme
2 Last Train to Clarksville
3 Mary Mary
4 For Pete’s Sake
5 Girl That I Knew Somewhere
6 Circle Sky
7 Pleasant Valley Sunday
I don’t know if it was because we had rehearsed really hard to make it
a special night or because someone was looking out for us, but we
absolutely ‘hit the pocket’ as Peter would say, and in all modesty we
really rocked. Saul sauntered over at one point and shouted “We’re
going to form a group”, a Monkees reference I KNOW you’ll all get.
After the interval, Iain came back with more comedy riffing and a
fantastic performance of Nine Times Blue on the ukelele
The crowd were singing along to everything and it was clear there was
a very very special atmosphere.
The second Shorty Blackwell set comprised:
1 Daydream Believer
2 I’m A Believer
3 Valleri
4 No Time
5 Randy Scouse Git
6 Gravy
7 Little Bit Me Little Bit You
8 Stepping Stone
The crowd would not let us leave after the final freak-out of Stepping
Stone and we were persuaded (didnt take much persuading) to do an
encore
We introduced the band with ‘Listen To The Band’ with each of the nine
(!) Shorties taking a short solo. then we invited Iain back on stage
and he sang with us on’I’m A Believer’, ‘Theme’ and finally (as Fred
could have predicted) Daydream Believer.
Everyone was singing along and it was a hugely emotional moment.
The event could not have gone better
1) A great turnout, the pub was packed which is right and fitting for
the occasion
2) Amazingly warm and happy atmosphere, everyone wanting to celebrate
David’s life and work
3) Every corny Davy joke or obscure monkees reference was cheered to
the rafters (when richard’s guitar went out of tune we even threw in
‘we tune because we care’
4) Everyone sang along and enjoyed the event
5) We raised more than £250 for David’s fave charity The Multiple
Sclerosis Society
I have been told that David’s close family have been informed of the
event and have requested a copy any footage shot, which makes us
honoured and proud.
Thanks to everyone who contributed by either performing (espeically
Iain who had the crwod eating out of his hand), writing a Davy joke on
this list (they were ahige success), or simply buying a ticket and
turning up.. however you helped, it was a great night and I dare to
say we did Davy proud.
(If you are a UK based Monkees fan who couldn’t make it but would like
to contribute to our total for the MS society, you can donate by
texting:
DAVY66 £5 to 70070
(the system will accept donations of £1 £2 or £10, so to donate £2
text DAVY66 £2 to 70070)
I’ve uploaded the whole concert to You tube at the playlist
http://www.youtube.com/
btw we have raised over £350 (over $500) for The MS Society so far
I hope Davy would be pleased
