Remember the night the Landlord's dog at the Malt nearly got Eric Bogle?
This actually runs into about three different stories, are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
It was, I think , the first time we saw Eric, he'd been on at Westhoughton the night before and a lot of the people from there had tagged along, full house at the Malt Shovels! When I arrived there were two seats left, I had one and Mike Harding had the other. One of your helpers made the immortal comment to me 'Oh God, I hope Mike doesn't want to sing!'
He asked out of courtesy and Mike said, 'Lend me your guitar, I'll just do one!' So in the interval floor spot, good as his word, he did one five minute song. (He also did a twenty minute introduction!) The song he sang was 'He was a ladies man.' which leads to a later memory of the evening, when I arrived home S had just heard that the wife of one of our local Market Gardeners had thrown him out because he had been visiting his mistress when she thought he was working in the greenhouse in the evening, life copies art!
Enough, back to Eric and the dog. You probably remember that dog, it was one that the phrase 'Junk Yard Dog' was invented for and it used to patrol the flat roof just outside our venue. It was a hot night, it was a crowded room and part way through his second set Eric said, 'I'ts hot in here' and started to open the window. With everyone yelling 'Don't open the window' he got it up about six inches and the dog's head came through. As I recall his next exclamation began with 'F' and he closed the window rather speedily.
Lovely guy, Eric, I stole a few songs from him.

Brian