Wally's sad passing meant that Terry was understandably unavailable for our gig last night at the Cauliflower. As a band, we had to decide whether to cancel the gig and let down our audience or adhere to the old showbiz motto that "the show must go on" and try to find a way to play the gig without our lead singer. After much soul searching, we decided that we somehow had to try to cobble a set together and put on a show. 

We got to the Cauli and set up as usual, before looking over our sets to decide what we could get away with and then to divide up the lead vocal duties between Dennis and I. Thankfully, we had printed off lyric sheets for all of the songs, which we would have to read from on the fly as we played. It took some remodelling, but after half an hour of brainstorming we had 2 sets of potential "we can get through this" songs together. 

At the start of the show, we told the audience about why Terry could not be with us and asked for their support to see us through. Thankfully, Dennis started the set singing "You Really Got Me" before I had a go at "Dani California". Things went pretty well and by the end of the first set, we were thinking that we actually had a pretty good chance of pulling it off. 

In the second set, we had a couple of guest singers to help us out; the ever present Joyce and Dawn got up to help us out on "Teenage Dirtbag" and my girlfriend Kim got up to do a great Amy Winehouse version of "Valerie". We did have a couple of shaky moments (most notably at the end of "All The Things That I've done", which went a bit unexpectedly "freeform jazz" :-) but the enthusiastic crowd were with us all of the way and, as we ended the set with "Don't Look Back in Anger", it was obvious that the crowd wanted more. Den sang a great "Dakota" before I rounded off proceedings with "Sweet Caroline", which had everyone in the place singing along and waving a sea of arms. We paid a final tribute to Wally before leaving the stage, feeling very proud to have pulled it together and done a great show in his honour. 

Yesterday's show was also sad for another reason, as it was our last with our keyboard player, Stu Barnes. Stu has been great addition to the band, giving our sound a whole new dimension and giving us the freedom to play songs that would not have sounded quite right without keys. We'll miss him and not just for his keyboard playing but also for his technical knowledge, sound desk skills and especially his ginger biscuits! Thanks for everything Stu.