This Year's Gigs
Gig at the Ivy House Social Club
First time at the Ivy House club and another success for the Aces! The club was packed to the rafters and it was a great, rumbustious, tumultuous, rousing evening. They drank! They sang! They danced! Truly, a glittering occasion. Steve Johnson, club President, and wearing a bright yellow flowery shirt that would have put Tom Selleck to shame, had broken with tradition and put a band on for the very first time
Robin’s new banjo made its debut, and a fine-looking instrument it is. Slightly fewer strings (20% fewer, mathematics fans!) than the last one, with a consequential gain in playability and – to the rest of the band’s obvious delight – no loss of volume. Nigel, the Fingers himself so it is, was as always on top of his form and was even requested to play some Russian songs. He twinkled and sparkled in his usual manner; Colin gave up attempting to play along after he ran out of his traditional three chords, muttering something about miners. And not a Davy lamp to be seen.
Kiff and James provided the dependable, solid backing the band have come to expect – despite James not being able to hear a thing that was going on at any one time – and Kiff’s rendition of Woolly Bully, that well-known Celtic shepherd’s song, achieved new levels of subtlety. Jennie Rae, our golden-toned chanteuse, received the highest accolade of the evening, and indeed of her musical career to date: two encores! Encouraging stuff, and not bad for three songs in total. Coordination among band members reached new heights, and they finished tunes at much the same time on several occasions over the course of the evening. Shambolic, said one well-wisher. No, perfectly genuine, came the response.
The band will be going back to the Ivy House in the New Year, on the single condition that they have a crack at Molly Malone this time. Molly was unavailable for comment as we went to press.
Gig at the Harvest Home for Sherwood Park School
Sherwood Park is a school is for special needs in Wallington, Surrey. Roger and Eileen Wright of the Harvest Home in Beddington Village have long been involved with the local community and, after the hugely successful fund-raising event with the Aces earlier in the year for St Raphael’s Hospice (see below), decided to see if they could repeat the magic.
It was a great evening. The place was packed, the dancing wild (thanks, Lesley!), the singing extravagant and, without putting too fine a point on it, but when you’re writing about yourselves there’s no room for false modesty, the whole thing was simply brilliant. The staff of the school put on an excellent auction, and Eileen’s astonishing raffle demonstrated once again the great support from the local shops and community. The tentative figure for the evening was £1300 – a grand result.
And the Aces, those fine, strapping specimens of humanity, who ooze energy, vitality and stamina from every youthful pore?
They were still worn out two days later! 
Gig at the Harvest Home for St. Raphael's Hospice
Photo: Thank you to Deadlinepix and the Sutton Guardian
Caring for people in Merton and Sutton:
Did you know that 70% of the money needed to run the hospice comes from fundraising, donations and legacies?
Can you help?
Ring 0208 335 4576
For more information visit their website: www.straphaels.org.uk
St Raphael's is being supported by: www.playmonday.com
Or contact:
Keith Witham, Director of Fundraising & Communications, St Raphael's Hospice, London Road North, Cheam, Sutton, SM3 9DX
Tel: 020 8335 4576
Fax: 020 8335 4573
Earlier in the summer the Harvest Home pub in Beddington Lane hosted a charity night for St Raphael’s Hospice in Cheam, their first to involve an evening of razzle-dazzle, sparkling vocals, astonishing instrumentation and nimble-fingers from the Aces, who have never before had the opportunity to blow their own trumpets or lie their heads off in such a blatant fashion on their own website.
A fantastic night was had by all; the band surprised everyone by playing most of the notes in the right order most of the time, and the audience danced their legs off and sang themselves hoarse, when they weren’t staring slack-jawed at the sheer virtuosity of the band. Eileen and Roger Wright, landlady and landlord respectively, who put a great deal of work into the evening, ran an incredibly successful raffle and auction, and the event raised £1100 for St Raphael’s.
Eileen was delighted: ‘People came from all over the place to support us, and it was really good fun, a great evening’. Pictured are Roger and Eileen, plus Colin, Jenny and James (for security reasons, the sole representatives of the Aces to face the hordes of screaming fans and paparazzi), and Ruth Bravo from St Raphael’s, at the cheque presentation ceremony at the Harvest Home.
It’s a fairly typical Colin pose; it might look like he’s a big happy smiling fellow, but he’s almost certainly just laughing at one of his own jokes.
