Deal Bandstand – Cranbrook Town Band

Kicking off the Summer Season

On a bright but slightly chilly afternoon of the 14th May, Cranbrook Town Band once again made the trip to Deal to play on the fantastic Memorial Bandstand to entertain locals and visitors alike.

The day saw the first outing for our new ties which replaced the traditional “bow tie” we had adopted in the late 1990s. Do they look better ? While the jury is still out, we will be instigating training in tying a tie properly for some of the members (female Bass players in particular) who failed to achieve the desired aesthetic.

The occasion also marked another milestone in the band’s history with the 30th anniversary telling of Ian’s favourite joke. So as not to spoil the punchline for future concerts, we won’t go into detail here, but if you were not alive in the 1990s it would be a good idea to bring a mobile phone with you to our next concert so that you can google the punchline and find out why you should be laughing !

Seconds of non-plussed tittering didn’t hold up the proceedings too long and thankfully bad jokes faded into distant memory as the “up-tempo” programme continued apace. Soloist Russ Kemp was the first to notice a slight increase to rehearsal tempos but never the less coped well with what the band suspected was a conductor who had taken one too many Pro-Plus !

Our thanks to our guests who helped us out today (Ben Bishop, Dean Pelling, Andy Stringer, Sian Lanceley) and to the sponsors without whom the concerts at the bandstand would not take place.

You can find details of the full programme on the next tab over from the day’s photos, it was largely a completely new one for this year and will soon be heard over in Belgium where the band will spend the next bank holiday weekend on tour. One more rehearsal to go and then we are off – pictures and video clips are sure to follow.

Can someone remind me to print out some pictures of Thora Hird for the Belgian audience !

Here are a couple of audience recordings from the day.

Photos

“Blue sky and sunshine and Cranbrook Town Band and Friends entertained the audience at the Deal Memorial Bandstand this afternoon.
Thanks to our sponsor Handy Dan and to Chris Mansfield and band members for these great photos.”