The REOFFENDERS

Punk Rock: Classic and Modern

The REOFFENDERS are on an indefinite break. Never say never, but we currently have no plans to play. However, we had joy and we had fun... and we blogged about it. Enjoy reading and reliving some good times.

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Monday, May 31, 2010

Tracy Saves the Day

I got a call from Madge at about 4pm on Saturday to say that his wife had been taken to hospital and therefore he wouldn't be able to do the gig that night. Obviously some things take priority and I promptly phoned the Black Horse and texted the rest of the band to say that it was cancelled.

Then Rob texted me to say, "Could Tracy do it?"

Tracy Toshiba just happened to be visiting from Brighton this weekend, to see her boyfriend - a certain Mr Indesit. I gave her a quick call and we ran through a list of songs to see whether we could put a set together. The answer was yes. Only problem was, she didn't pack her drumkit! Silly girl!

So I spent the next hour and a half trying to find a drumkit that we could borrow. Our good friend Dave came up with one! Dave works with Ben from Go Green Monkey and Ben was happy to lend us his kit. Hurray for Ben!

So after a frantic couple of hours, we turned up at the Black Horse to set up and play the gig. There were a couple of moments where we realised that we'd changed the arrangement of a song since Tracy left us 3 years ago but it was amazing how well she played 30 songs that she hasn't performed since then!

Ben got up on stage to play Basketcase with us which was cool, and nice that he actually got to play his own kit! Rob was on form as he and Hoover kept a comedy show running throughout the gig. It seemed like a who's who of Exeter bands in the audience and as a result had the feeling that we were amongst friends.

The next day we played at the Otter Inn at Collaton Raleigh. We had a marquee big enough to cover the band equipment and the weather fortunately stayed good. They had a great setup at the pub with a nice beer garden, BBQ and about 10 different real ales - which obviously we had to try.

The landlord had been nice enough to offer his garden as a camping area, complete with shower/toilet for us to use, so that we could enjoy the evening in style.

Great pub, great audience, and loads of kids doing air guitar! LOL

Thanks to everyone who came to see us this weekend, that was a lot of fun!

p.s. we're glad to hear that Mrs Madge is back at home. Hope you're back on the Blossom Hill soon me dear :-)
Best wishes from all of us


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Saturday, May 08, 2010

Bank Holiday weekend

Last weekend was pretty exhausting but I think we've recovered now.

Thursday

It all started in Newton Abbot on the Thursday before the Bank Holiday where we played the Jolly Farmer. Last time we were there, it was quite a punky vibe so I'd written our setlist accordingly, but this time round it was a much younger audience who wanted the more modern stuff, so we tweaked things a bit for the second half.

There were also two guys there who'd been to their nan's funeral that day and were drinking to her and giving us lots of song requests. As well as doing the requests, John dedicated 'Going Underground' to her. Oh the shame!

Saturday

Friday was a gigless day but we all had work so started the weekend feeling pretty knackered before leaving Exeter at 9am to head to North Wales. We were booked to play the Welsh National Scooter Rally in Llandudno which was great, but a bloody long way!
We weren't playing till 10.30pm but had to be there for 4ish to soundcheck so it was a pretty long day. After soundcheck, we went for a wander and got some pizza before heading back to the venue to tuck into our rider of 24 tins of Fosters :-)

The gig was over in a flash and after a quick packdown, we headed to our nearby travelodge to get some kip.

Sunday

We woke with lots of spare time so went for breakfast at the Little Chef next door. What a rip off. Terrible service, barely passable food and expensive to boot. We won't be doing that again!

We'd thought ahead and booked somewhere for Sunday lunch so that we could eat properly and so that the two Pauls could watch the footy. Sadly, they'd taken out Sky since the reviews that we'd read and were offering pretty poor veggie options for John and I. The best laid plans and all that.... Still, it's better than a Ginsters pasty from a service station! And the toffee crunch pudding was good ;-)

Next stop was Somerset. Robert, from Best Kept Secret, had very kindly stashed our PA at his house over night so that we didn't have to drive all the way back to Exeter. He's a very very nice man with a great band - check them out if you haven't seen them!

So we went to unlock the van and couldn't. The back door was firmly locked. Oh dear. We wrestled with it for over half an hour, with help from Robin (also of BKS) and telephone support from Matt (Trigger Happy and ace VW mechanic). Finally Robin managed to open it... and discovered Rob's bag hanging on the door lock! WTF? He'd chucked it in the back and it had rolled about and landed beautifully on the lock.

With that job done, we loaded up and headed for Wellington for gig 3 of 4. We were playing outside despite the bitter cold and the rain having a go at washing us out. Thankfully, we were in Wellington where they're all bonkers and they stood outside regardless :-)

Because there'd be another band on already, we were late being able to setup our gear so rather than keep people waiting, we decided not to get changed. Plus we needed our jackets! and jumpers!

We finished at about 12.15am and packed away quickly so we could get home and sleep. We were very very knackered by this point and Madge was in danger of having the lurgy.

Monday

After a long sleep, I felt soooooo much better and ready to face the world again. We were playing at the Royal Oak in Ilminster, our first time there. They were having a charity "Dave's Day" where they tried to get as many Dave's in the pub as possible! LOL!

Before we could setup, they had to move the fruit and veg stand (I'm not kidding! really!) that the landlord's son runs. They've got Wii projected onto one wall, Sports on another screen as well as a freezer full of gorgeous icecream. A very nice pub with the landlord and landlady really making an effort to make a community pub work.

It was nice to see some familiar faces and some of our tshirts in the audience as people had travelled from surrounding villages to see us. What a welcome.

We finished at 12pm and had a drink with the owners, and an icecream, before heading home. A pleasure to play there and we will be back again later in the year.

So all in all, an exhausting weekend but bloody good fun.



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Monday, May 03, 2010

REOFFENDERS hoodies available to order THIS WEEK ONLY

We'll be placing an order this week for Reoffenders hoodies. These are not available at gigs - there are just too many colour choices to carry stock. They are ordered to your specific choice of colour and size (printing is white on all).

Go to http://www.reoffenders.co.uk/hoodies.asp to order yours. They're an excellent quality Gildan heavyweight hoodie. We've worn/washed/dried ours a lot and they're still surviving well :-)

Delivery is a fortnight


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