I’m off on a cruise ship next week. In return for wheelbarrows of food, huge galvanised buckets of booze and trips to exotic places conducted at a pace that would suit a reasonably fit 80 year old (or clapped out 57 year old – i.e. me) I have to play my drums for a couple of hours for the terpsichorean pleasure of the passengers.
In a bizarre moment of eccentric design the club in which the band performs has given pride of place to the TV and shoved the band in the corner in front of the broom cupboard (at one point the designer had planned to put the loos behind the band area until it was pointed out that this may not be the best location).
In another brilliant move they placed the band directly above the most expensive cabins and didn’t sound proof the floor so one bar of Dancing Queen and you wake ‘em all up. I suggested a simple solution to this – which was give the de-luxe cabins to the band so they’re empty when we’re playing. Oddly this brilliant idea was turned down.
Dancing Queen by Abba
Now once upon a time if you had a room full of OAPs you’d give them a waltz, a cha cha, a foxtrot, a dashing white sergeant and then start all over again and all was simple. Then it all changed. Those 70 year olds dozing off whilst you play Moon River were of course 20 year olds in mini skirts, skintight hipsters, Biba dresses and John Stephen of Carnaby Street striped suits and kinky boots. This is alarming as this wasn’t supposed to happen to that generation and quite honestly I don’t recognise any of that swinging 60’s crowd amongst the comatose over 70’s.
But then you get fed up with the empty dance floor, crack into I can’t Get No Satisfaction and bloody hell, they’re all over the place. Then it’s the funky chicken, the mashed potato, the hucklebuck, the hippy hippy shake. And then the ship’s doctor is called, the dance floor closed with incident tape and the band can finally go to bed. When did these OAPs get so damned funky?
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