Essex Country Show

Last week, we played at the Essex Country Show, from 12 until 3 on Saturday and Sunday.

It’s not really the sort of event where people sit in their deckchairs and listen for three hours – a lot of the audience were on their way from A to B and paused for a few minutes as they were passing, and it was gratifying to see how many of them wanted to find out more about the band (judging by conversations during the breaks, and the amount of flyers that people took away with them).

I can’t help feeling we were really lucky with the weather. It had been due to rain on Saturday, but fortunately, this failed to materialise. Sunday was gorgeous  -dry and sunny. I could complain about the breeze, and the difficulty of managing sheet music, I suppose, but that would just be picky, and possibly even churlish. And anyway, we don’t like to moan in our band.

If anyone wants to submit captions for any of the above, please do!

Harmonie at Porter’s

Back in 2004 (6 June), Harmonie played at Porter’s, the official residence of Southend’s mayor. There was a professional photographer – Daniel Singer – there who took loads of pictures of the band (or, actually, of the Reduced Harmonie Band that played on the day – there wasn’t enough room for all of us).

Harmonie at Porter's, June 2004

Recently, Karen handed me a CD from Daniel, and asked me to upload the photos, which I’ve now done. You can find them here (opens in a new window).

So now comes the typical me part: I don’t know where I’ve put the CD and accompanying paperwork, but if I ever come across it again, I’ll update this post, and add a link to his website.

In the meantime, thanks Daniel!

Edited to correct the URL.

Photos of the band

We had our first concert of the autumn last Sunday, at Southend bandstand in Priory Park. It went well – we had a good audience and our MD didn’t rearrange his facial features into a painful grimace on too many occasions. Here’s a picture of us in action:

Harmonie at Priory Park

Thanks to Muriel – and her husband – for supplying the photo.

We’ve also had a few people send us photos from our Royal Festival Hall appearance back in Spring. You can see these in the gallery.