The Spectrum Centre provided excellent facilities for the St Patrick’s celebrations, and the band are delighted to be returning on Good Friday evening (2nd May 2010).

There was plenty of craic on the night with the odd joke or 2 from Valerie and Willie to give everyone their daily giggle. (They do say laughter is the best medicine!)

Willie’s fan club appears to grow steadily, and shouts of “more” follow when the audience have sampled his renditions of popular well-known songs. (He may be requiring his own dressing room shortly!!)

Not to be outdone, our recently joined member, Charlie Estler (vocals/guitar), along with the girls, Kerri (vocals/fiddle) and Rachel (vocals/fiddle), had the audience joining in with their songs, which is a sure sign they are enjoying the night. Kerri also squeezed in a wee Scottish dance, and Ronnie & Rachel demonstrated the “Gay Gordans”, but the audience were a bit shy about joining in, maybe next time?

Instrumental performances are a key feature in any of our gigs and we were fortunate to have most if not all members in attendance. They don’t get a chance to say much but boy can they play!!

The night was completed by the spectacular performance from members of the Shankhill Young Defenders flute band. We were certainly impressed with their performance, and would be delighted to share the stage again with them in the future.

Rachel

Also on the programme were 2 dancers from local dance group ‘Flower of the Bann’, who went down well with the audience.

It was a bit of a rush getting there, as some members don’t finish work till 6pm, but we made it on time for the 8 o’clock start – albeit with a bit of panicing (as usual) by Valerie with the PA system! Rachel made sure she was ready for the long night ahead with her packed lunch, although I think Willie might have eaten more of it than she did! We performed in the first half for approximately an hour, with a selection of ulster, irish and scottish songs and tunes, which seemed to go down well. Judging by the clapping and singing along anyway. After this, the dancers performed a few pieces – which were very good – 2 talented young ladies. William Frazer then said a few words to the audience, after which everyone enjoyed a cup of tea and bite to eat.

The second half started again with the dancers, and then ourselves again. The secret weapon ‘Willie’ came to the fore once again, with a well-recieved selection of orange based numbers. The man’s getting quite a fan-club! And of course not forgetting the other vocalists – Charlie, Rachel and Kerry. Charlies version of ‘Boys from the Co Armagh’ went down particularly well, and Kerry surprised both the audience and us by jumping off the stage to do a bit of scottish dancing of her own for ‘100 pipers’

The evening finished around 11pm, and a good night was had by all, with many members of the audience saying they hoped we’d be back soon. And it would be a pleasure for us – very warm and friendly people – and absolute joy to play for.

NB F.A.I.R.’s website is http://victims.org.uk

It’s taken some time to get it back up again, and we’ll be continuing to change it over the next few months. 

So please bear with us while we get this up and running again!

The music got off to a great start from the band, featuring the accomplished John Trotter playing four different instruments! (Fiddle, Accordion, Trombone and Fife) though not all at once!! The audience enjoyed the vocals of our ladies, Fiona singing ‘Will ye go lassie go’ and Rachel singing ‘Auld maid in a garret’. John and our newest member, Willie Rock, had everyone joining in with a variety of well-known “ sing-alongs”. A great night was had by all!

Rachel