"Belting finish"

Literally on the back of an envelope, my university band's set list, either for our gig at The Bear (of which, more later), or possibly just for rehearsal.

In any case, the first number (apparently the theme tune to Doctor Who, which I distinctly remember practising on guitars with Rich in his T.C.E. hall of residence room) never made it to rehearsals. Of the rest, songs like All Day And All Of The Night, Johnny B Goode and Wild Thing demonstrate the residual desperation of having to play stuff we'd all learned in other bands.

Genuinely impressive stabs were taken at some tough songs, though. Attempting Bigmouth Strikes Again is no mean feat (and I think we cracked it, near enough) and Save A Prayer was tough on all of us, particularly with those high vocal notes.

More Than Words, whilst something Rich and I were happy to attempt a capella, was ditched for the full band. One song that did creak its way back into the set list was Heartbreak Hotel and, by God, didn't we wish it hadn't. I chose the intro to that particular song to urge people to get up and dance, and then had to watch Rich's girlfriend Rach do her very best to try and sway along to the stodgy, turgid and frankly slow version we launched into. It felt like an age.

However, the two songs that we really excelled at were I Can't Help Falling In Love With You (our own stomping medley of the Elvis version and the Lick The Tins cover we'd heard on the soundtrack of John Hughes' Some Kind Of Wonderful - track it down if you can, it's fab), and Starry Blue-Eyed Wonder (an Icicle Works album track suggested by Ad the drummer, also recommended). Crowd-pleasers both, they were. So much so, we played 'em again at the end when we'd run out of encores. A belting finish indeed...