Ian Stewart Blog

Now gigging wise, this has been one of my quietest weeks for a long time, with just the one gig.

Saturday night, I was booked to provide the disco and also do the auction at a charity ball at Stock Brook Manor in Billericay Essex, they charity had also booked my wife Sharon to sing for an hour.

we arrived at the venue in plenty of time, so that we could set up the disco, also wire Sharon's reverb and mini disc player into my system, so that Sharon could sing using my equipment, that way only one system would be needed and the room looked a lot more tidy. I also had to install a couple of extra speakers into the main part of the room, so that everyone could hear the bids etc for the auction.

We were set in plenty of time, and had a quick run through the running order with the two girls organising the evening, so the meal started with a small introduction from Lisa, one of the organisors, a little bit of house keeping, about the raffle, heads & tails and auction.

and what a marvelous night it was, a great game of heads & tails, then the raffle, followed by a great auction the high light being a £1,000 for a dinner for 10 at Ingatestone Hall, and the surprise being the £290 for a signed Chelmsford City Ball, I thought it would be a struggle, so devised a differant auction game to get the most out of the item.

Once the room was ready we started the dancing, and between Sharon & I we had the dancefloor full all night with some great music played as well.

Once the evening was over we'd managed to raise over £5,000 on the night

GOOD LUCK GIRLS with your walk accross Brazil

well todays blog is about my Friday,

Well we woke up at the usual time, with a couple of errands that we needed to do, so I looked after the paperwork that needed to be done, printed off the playlist for Murray's gig in the evening and left for an afternoon in Brighton, which has got to be one of my favourite places.

I had to return 4 LED uplighters that I had borrowed from a DJ colleague of mine, we arrived at lunch time, had a nice cup of tea, and a chat were we put the world and DJ industry to rights, then a short drive into Brighton, and a nice walk around the Lanes followed by a meal in the famous soul food restaurant (the one featured on the Gordan Ramsey show).

We then had an hours drive to The Faifield Halls, Croydon for the Main event, we saw the Mighty Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, I had never seen this band, and had always wanted wanted to see them. This was the opening night of their short UK tour and WOW what a night, all the classics were played;

Before I Let Go
Running Away
Back In Stride
Happy Feelings
Southern Girl
Golden Time Of Day
and of Course Joy & Pain

I no this blog is a little off from my normal work related musings, but I wanted to put on record what a superb night it was