...
Macaroni Penguins played their first ever gig, at
Piggy's Birthday Party, in his house.
We had just acquired a drummer, Michelle, the previous day, but she declined to play with us at such short notice, so the four of us - Mark, Mike, Jim and Fred (our former keyboard player) - struggled through 11 songs backed by a TR-505 drum machine and a dodgy amp.
The songs played were:
- Keep Your Hands To Yourself
- Vampire Blues
- Is She Really Going Out With Him?
- Hard To Handle
- So You Think You're In Love
- Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
- Walking By Myself
- R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.
- Fearless Heart
- Future's So Bright
- Stepping Stone
Interestingly we recently played another 11 song set at
Snodfest 2008 - due to time constraints - and that set had exactly no songs in common with our first ever set. Although having said that S
tepping Stone is still our third most played song (after
Another Girl, Another Planet and
Make Me Smile) and still the song we traditionally end on, and another two songs (
Hard To Handle and
Future's So Bright) are among our top ten most played songs, although have been absent from recent sets. And one of the songs from this set (
Fearless Heart) went so well that we have never played again. Ever.
But, things have moved on, 14 years and 92 gigs later we have lost a keyboard player and gained a drummer and a backing vocalist, lost a drummer and gained a different one, gained a lot more songs and lost a few as well, gained a lot of experience and lost a lot of nervousness.
Here's to 2009.
"But they're guaranteed to raise a smile"
Macaroni Penguins will be returning to the wilds of deepest, darkest Worcestershire to play at Upton Snodsbury Music Festival 2009 on Sunday, 19th September 2009 at Upton Snodsbury Park.
