The Twilight Market etc

posted by Kath

It's been a while since I've posted and it's been a while since The Nancies performed! What with Christmas, people away and other reasons beyond our control, there's hardly even been enough time to practice! Still, we managed to squeeze a couple in before the Twilight Market! And what a cool gig it was!! It was great to be singing and entertaining again! We all really do love it, despite the complications!

We had a captive audience most of the time - it changed and varied, but some stayed for the whole hour and a half. Katrina had the forsight to put a 'hat' out and we made enough to feed and water ourselves afterwards! A huge bonus and we are grateful to everyone who contributed =) The wee boy above stayed and listened for a long time and put lots of money in the hat too!! Cute huh? And below are another couple of attentive listeners =)

We have arranged (well, Jane has) a version of "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" which I just LOVE doing. It's such fun with the percussion and interesting to sing. Jane, you are clever! Liz......great suggestion! I just looked up where it originated from and it was written in 1947, by a Cuban named Osvaldo Farres (with an accent above the "e") and in Spanish "Quizas, Quizas, Quizas" (with an accent above the "a"). A band called "Cake" covered it, and this is the version Liz got the idea from.

Liz and I formed "Zilk" again to fill in for The Nancies. I have to say, we really enjoyed getting back together and doing what we do!! Which is mostly covers, guitar, clarinet, some more obscure originals of mine and even some 2part a cappella. We had a lunchtime gig at the top of Trafalgar St on Saturday 19th Jan. Thanks to Arts Marketing for organising and funding this. We felt a bit like we were playing to parked cars though! A few people at House of Ales listened and two people had come specifically to hear The Nancies, but stayed and enjoyed it anyway. Two lovely ladies stayed and listened to us for the whole hour and a half, which was really nice. We also did an hour's Streetbeat - thanks to NCC and the Summer Festival - it was a really nice atmosphere and the audience was appreciative, which is always a pleasure =D

Up and coming gigs for The Nancies........next one is pre-show entertainment at Opera in the Park, Saturday 16th Feb! Our biggest gig yet! It's half an hour, on the main stage and we are all pretty excited about it! I know I'm going to revel in having a 'real' sound engineer!!! Woohoo! We are on at 5.45pm, after Sunsuite (who start at 5pm) and The Brassband and before Cairde and The Brass Band again. Don't miss it!!!! Just between you and me, my Dad is very sick...anyway Kiri Te Kanawa is one of his all time favourite singers, so when I said "Dad, we are opening for Kiri", (which is how I like to tell the story....!) he was very proud =) Awwww, aren't Dads great, even when you're all grown up!! ;)

The weekend after that - 23rd Feb, we are travelling to Kaikoura to do a concert. We were going to play in the amphitheatre, but I think we are now playing at the A & P Show that is on the same weekend. It was organised by the Arts Council down there. That'll be a lovely weekend. We are also singing at a wedding while we are there and having a Hangi too!! M-mmm.

Then it's off to the Mussel Inn on the 8th March! Another great place to play and a fantastic place to stay!!! We might even record a live album that night.....still working on that.....hope we can pull it off! Sounds great though, don't you think? "The Nancies - Live at The Mussel Inn"!!! Yep, it's got appeal.......

That's all for now folks! Any questions? Want to be added to our email list? You can email me any time kathbee@xtra.co.nz I'll get some of the other "Nancies" to write a post one of these days!!