Saturday night at Far Cotton

It’s Saturday night, it’s dancing time!

It rained quite a bit on Saturday, but I did eventually get a moment to vacuum the carpet in my car. (You’d be amazed how quickly it fills up with dead leaves and so forth.) And then I went to pick up Lynn and Laivinia.

This is easier said than done; I drove to the place, and I was told the house is “just at the end of the road”. What I didn’t realise is that the road goes on for about half a mile! Eventually I ended up on somebody’s back garden patio. I managed to quickly do an 87-point turn before the owners of the house noticed some random dude in their back garden. And when I drove back round the corner, Lynn and Lavinia were waiting for me outside their house.

Along the way I saw at least 3 different cats, and sure enough there was another one just outside the house. No sooner had Lynn finished triple-locking the door then the cat wanted to go inside. So Lynn had to triple-unlock the door, let the cat in and then triple-lock the door again. Then the girls got into the car. Lynn managed to adjust the front seat so Lavinia would have some actual leg-room. I was surprised at how easily she figured out the controls — until she reminded me that she used to work for Renault.

I had loaded a few CDs into my car, but actually the girls were quite happily chatting amounst themselves, and I was enjoying talking to them as well, so the music never got turned on. The route was fairly simple, until we reached Northampton itself. I knew what the road I was looking for looks like, but the rest of the journey was not so obvious. Still, I brought us to the right place without so much as a wrong turn. As soon as I saw the bridge, I took a turn and drove up to the Cotton Club. The difficult part was figuring out where the hell to park.

We could clearly see some people walking around outside who were definitely dressed for a rock & roll event — or a fashion police curfew violation perhaps. I managed to find somewhere to park, and I nervously followed the girls to the door. The room we eventually found ourselves in was quite small. The entire floor was a dancefloor, but only a small square in front of the raised stage was clear of tables and chairs. A few minutes after we arrived, the music started playing, and the lights went down.

Between them the girls kept me stocked with Apply & Mango J₂O to drink. And it did get fairly warm in there. We hadn’t been seated long when Barry & Elaine turned up and came to join us. According to them, the club in Roade has been shut down, so next week’s dance won’t be happening. A short while later, Pam & Clive arrived. We all moved to a table with more spare seats so they could join us, but apparently some of their other friends had also saved them a seat, so they went over there. Never mind!

The music was loud, but not deafening. Loud enough that we had to lean over the table to hear each other. Initially the dance floor was empty, but gradually one or two couples went out to dance on it. The story of the night is basically one of a dance floor that was almost too crowded to dance on. The floor was always either empty or full. And when it was empty, almost as soon as anyone started to dance on it, it filled up.

I danced with Lynn, I danced with Lavinia, I even danced with Elaine a few times, but there was never really much space to do anything. In fact, I spent more time trying to not crash into people than actually enjoying the dance. Which is a pitty, really. Lynn wasn’t really firing on all cylinders; she was complaining of tummy ache, which really isn’t conducive to to giggling around the place, I’d imagine. Still, I did manage to throw in the occasional Catapult. (Most of the time there just wasn’t space.) In the end, amount the most adventerous thing I managed to do was replace some of the Returns with a Double Under.

Some of the other dancers looked fairly good out there. I don’t know exactly what they were dancing, but they were moderately good at it. A few of them even did the occasional lift. They don’t teach that kind of thing at our school. I didn’t see Pam & Clive dance that much. Then again, they’re not the greatest dancers that ever lived. Barry got up for almost all of the Strolls. (Apparently this is another venue where he does line dancing.) As the evening got going, Barry & Elaine spent quite some time on the dancefloor. I’d tell you if they were any good, but I couldn’t actually see them amoungst the sea of people.

Even Barry commented on how Elaine tends to think she’s in charge, and the few times I danced with her, that’s the impression I got. As usual, she seemed to get better as the night went on. All of the people I danced with ended up crashing into somebody or other. The floor was just that packed. At one point, I missed out a move and Lavinia headbutted my right shoulder. It was a fairly soft collision, but presumably it still wasn’t particularly fun for her. I know it wasn’t for me.

As billed, later in the evening we got Sonny & the Honey Dippers. This band comprises about half a dozen musicians, most of them playing saxophone. There was also a guy with an electronic keyboard set up to play piano. He seems to think that “intense playing” just means tunelessly mashing the keys. I’m not especially impressed. The other guys seemed quite good though. Certainly the sound they put out was, in the main, quite danceable.

They played a couple of memorable songs. There was one where every 3 minutes or so, the band stops playing and the lead singer leans forward and says “Tequila!” Another started off as a slowish tango of some kind (indeed, one couple appeared to be dancing some mannar of Argentine Tango), and then suddenly erupted into another R&R number. And then the lead singer asked “are there any Scottish people here tonight?” before the band started playing that tune of unknown origin from the Maynards wine gums advert. As you can imagine, with that many saxophones on stage, it sounded pretty authentic.

We got two seperate encores out of the band before they finally left the stage for good. At this point, almost everybody was packing up to leave. The dance floor was conspicuously empty, so a dragged Lynn and Lavinia onto the floor to have a go at Double Trouble. The girls had their back to Pam’s table, but the look on Pam’s face said “Oh, get you! You’re brave aren’t you? Let’s see what this looks like then.” It was… actually a total shambles. But I think we all had a good laugh. (Apparently the girls have done this just once before.)

All in all, it wasn’t a bad night. I got to do a reasonable amount of dancing, swinging my partner around at arm’s length. There was one dance I did with Lynn where I think I was perhaps just a little too enthusiastic, because I was knackered after that. It took me about half an hour to recover enough to dance again. And a few other times I found myself wishing the song would end so I could sit down. By the end of the night, my left foot was a little sore. But it was quite a good night anyway.

Before she left, Pam told me that the gig at Roade had actually moved to a new venue and she said she would send me details. So hopefully I’ll see her (and Barry & Elaine) at that next weekend. In the car on the way home we kind of arranged that we’d all meet on on Saturday to do some more dance practise. (Buggered if I can remember the damned directions now though!)

Other that that, I now have to cope with my first week in a long time with no dancing in it.

This entry was posted on Monday 16 Aug 2010 at 03:29 pm and is filed under Dancing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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