Fleet / Covent Garden / Wickham

Fleet Beer Festival & The Marquis, Covent Garden – Saturday 1st August 2026.

I have 3 gigs to tell you about this time around, and there’s a method to this madness!

Our beloved and wonderful lead singer Rusty is currently on maternity leave after the birth of her gorgeous son Leo. Mother, baby and family all doing well and thoroughly enjoying being parents

So, because we did not want to lose momentum, Buzz's daughter, the amazing Goldie (she is another owner of a superb set of pipes) is singing with us until Rusty returns in the new year. All with Rusty’s blessing.

Having brilliantly learnt over 30 songs, Goldie’s first initiation into serious gigging was this 3-gig weekend with 3 very different gig vibes, more by luck than by judgement. We do like to play different types of gigs though, so I guess it was kind of inevitable.

First up is the wonderful Fleet Beer Festival. This takes place in the spacious and grand Harlington in Fleet. Nice big hall, nice big stage. This will be a good start to the weekend.

Buzz and Goldie arrive to pick me up nice and early. We have to get there, load in and soundcheck, all before 11am. Ted is already there when we arrive. We say hello to the brilliant sound crew Ruairi and Damon and set about getting set up. We’ve played this event before so we know how good the sound will be. Eddie arrives in time and we run a couple of songs to get the sound right. Sound levels duly set (remembering that this is a beer festival with music, not a music festival with beer) Buzz, Goldie and me decide to head out for a coffee. Our usual place is unfortunately closed so we end up in Starbucks. Buzz and I get confused / flustered / exasperated by their new online ordering system. Goldie has to come to the rescue! The young ones are a lot more tech savvy than the oldies!

Ted, Tash and Eddie join us soon after.

Drinks duly consumed we head back to the venue, which by now is full. Goldie does her vocal warm ups in the dressing room while the boys talk gibberish. Then it’s time.

We make our entrance from the side of the stage as we start “Twenty Flight Rock”. It’s sounding great. Goldie is in full flight and the first set goes brilliantly. We even attempt a new song, our version of The Beatles’ “All I’ve Got To Do”. The first soon draws to a close and we’ve done brilliantly, at least we think we have. The crowd reaction at events like these is always pretty stifled, they can’t clap too loudly because they are holding their beers!

People buy CD’s though and as we walk around we get a lot of lovely comments from people who have been enjoying the show. It seems we are doing well!

During half time Sandy comes to take some photos of us backstage, we need some to introduce Goldie on our social media and to let everyone know what is happening with Rusty. We try a few different poses and then it’s lunch time. I don’t actually like to eat too much before gigs but as we are going straight on to another gig after this one, I feel I better. I order a pizza from the outside stall. It’s delicious.

The second half goes really well too. Apparently, we find out afterwards, we’ve had a bigger turn out for the afternoon session than they get for the evening session. A first we believe. We’d like to think that’s because we were playing, but it could just be coincidence! All in all, a great afternoon.

After packing up Buzz and Goldie head off, they want to get changed before getting the train to London. Eddie heads off into London to the shops and Ted takes the bulk of his drum kit home. I hang around, grabbing some more alcohol-free beers and get changed myself (it’s been a sweaty one!).

Ted comes back to pick me up and we set off on the journey into Central London. Tonight’s gig will be completely different to the afternoon. We have played at The Marquis in Covent Garden before. It’s very cosy and always busy. Up close and personal you could say! After a painless journey, on which we see some sights (we can’t discuss these though, what happens on tour, stays on tour!) we arrive at The Marquis nice and early. Unbeknown to us there is an Arctic Monkeys afternoon happening. They are playing every Arctic Monkeys album in order, on vinyl. The place is packed already. Luckily though, there’s no live music happening, so we can start setting up in the ‘stage’ area. Ted and I unload what stuff we have and he heads off to park the car.

The stage area is really very small at The Marquis so it’s a bit of a 3D jigsaw puzzle making room and making everything fit. Once anything unnecessary is moved out of the way and what’s needed is slotted into place we have enough room. Ted eventually comes back from parking the car (he had to wait until the parking restrictions were okay) and everyone else arrives too. Eddie first, followed by Buzz and Goldie having gotten the train.

It’s only a small PA and with everybody literally playing on top of each other it’s not easy to get enough vocals over the top of the instruments. I give it a go though, and the soundcheck sounds good.

More and more people are now arriving and the end of the Arctic Monkeys event hasn’t emptied the place out. The venue is still packed. There’s a few familiar faces here to see us too. I even meet a guitarist from Billy Idol’s former band Generation X. It’s fair to say that The Marquis is a very cool place to hang out and watch live music.

After briefly helping with the Arctic Monkeys raffle we hit the ground running and head into the second set. Ted is just on stand-up snare for this gig, which is always great fun. Despite the vocals initially not being loud enough, a few tweaks here and there and a bit of graphic equalisation and we’re sounding great. With the audience being so close the atmosphere is fabulous and the vibe is great fun. We play a great mix of originals and cover versions and go down really well. It’s hot, sweaty and loud. Just the way we like it! I sell t-shirts during the break and my friend from Generation X buys me alcohol-free beers. This place is still buzzing!

The second half flows nicely and we’re firing on all cylinders. I dance through the crowd (where I can find room) during “No Particular Place To Go” and we watch in awe as things get crazy in the crowd. Ted’s girlfriend gets asked is she’s single and a drunken Aussie walks around with one of our stickers on his face! This is definitely a different vibe to the beer festival this afternoon.

Before we know it we’ve reached the end of our sets. The audience won’t let us leave though so we have to play something from the first set again, we opt for Little Richard’s “Lucille”. Always a good crowd pleaser. What a fun gig! Thanks Marquis!

Wickham Music Festival – Sunday 2nd August 2026.

The second day of the weekend of gigs comes around and we’re off to Wickham Festival, somewhere between Winchester and Portsmouth. Ted arrives bright and early to pick me up, we need to get there and drop our merchandise off at the merchandise tent. There’s a designated tent selling merch so we’re more than happy for them to take our stuff. It saves us trying to sell at the side of the stage!

I tell Ted on the way down how we got this booking. I’d just emailed Wickham on the off chance as I’d read about the festival somewhere. I got a lovely reply back saying that they’d had hundreds of emails applying to play but ours really stood out. That was nice. They offered us a slot on their second main stage. We bit their arm off.

Upon arrival we can see why this festival has such a good reputation. The organisation is second to none and all the staff are very friendly and very helpful. We have no problem picking up our passes and we’re guided to the backstage area which we can drive right up to. Fabulous. Arriving backstage a crew of people help us unload before Ted goes off to park and I explore our designated dressing room. There’s alcohol-free beers, cider, Guinness, soft drinks, crisps, fruit, nuts, chocolate. This is amazing. After making myself at home I head off to drop the merchandise at the merch tent. All the stock is counted in and ready for display when I’m asked if we want to do a signing after we’d played! I hadn’t thought about that! I say yes! I have no idea if anyone will come but it’s worth a try.

After a brief walk around the festival site I head backstage and am greeted by Goldie, Buzz and Eddie who have all just arrived. The crew have already unloaded all their gear so I show them to the dressing room and fill everyone in on the plan to do a signing after our set. The boys head off to park their cars and I take this opportunity to check out the tent we are playing in and the stage we’ll be playing on. It’s massive. There’s a ska band playing now, all dressed as skeletons. It’s fair to say that the tent is packed and jumping.

Just as they finish and I head back to the dressing room a familiar face comes towards me, it’s Russell Hastings of From The Jam fame. I say hello, Russell and I talk online a bit. It’s great to meet. Russell is here to do a talk on the main stage, at the same time as we are on the second main stage. Shame. Russell said he would have been up for jumping up and playing “Slow Down” with us if the timings didn’t clash. Maybe another time! He wants to say hello to the rest of the band though, so he comes to the dressing room. We chat, we take photos, we like Russell. He heads off to get himself ready for his talk and we check out what’s going on in our tent.

Following the ska band there’s a folk band on. This festival really is eclectic. It works though, the vibe is just different. We do worry if people will come back after the folk band has finished. The audiences seem to drift off in-between the acts, presumably to check out other stages.

However, our time comes to set up and when we launch into our opener “Until The Dance Is Over” we look up to see we had nothing to worry, the tent is absolutely rammed. Right from the start we are getting some serious love back from this crowd. The cheers and applause is deafening. Despite some technical problems with Eddie’s amp we’re on fire today. The songs sound great (the sound crew are amazing) and the stage presence and banter is on top form. After playing our version of The Beatles’ “Oh! Darling” I introduce the dulcet tones of Goldie on vocals and the roof nearly comes off the tent. Incredible!

We’ve had the best time, but all things must come to an end and before long we have to depart the stage. Our original songs interspersed with the covers have all gone down brilliantly.

A quick pack up and we head to the merchandise tent. I really don’t know what to expect, or if anybody will come to see us! I needn’t have worried! There’s a table set up for the signing and there’s already a queue of people buying our CD’s and vinyl. So much love! We sign the records and CD’s that are put in front of us, chatting away and thanking everyone who bought something or just stopped by to say they enjoyed our set. There’s quite a few of them.

We have to say Wickham Music Festival is our new favourite festival. Everything about today has been amazing. We hope to be back in 2027.

Lucky.