PLUC – The First Decade!

Well, this month PLUC turned ten years old. Many thanks to all our ex-members & WordPress readers who kindly sent us best wishes!

We celebrated alfresco in the Lewis Club’s garden, along with home-made cake from Gail, our long-distance commuter, who comes from Colchester whenever she’s visiting her family in Catford.

Reload the page to get a different order of pictures; hover over an image to read a description & click on it to see it full-size. Thanks to Andrew, Gail, Jeanette & Julie for the photos.

Simon put together a selection of ten of the original songs played in those early days, which were basic tunes from existing groups such as Ukulele Wednesdays & TUSC. It was interesting to contrast these with the more advanced numbers we soon enjoyed playing once the group was running & our experienced players began bringing in their own arrangements. We currently have 110 songs in our repertoire, in a wide mix of styles & covering a good mix of genres & eras, specifically picked to try to avoid the regular songs you hear in every ukulele group or festival singalong!

For the second half of the evening, Jeanette read out the eagerly-awaited results of our recent Top Ten survey to find our ten favourite (& ten least-liked!), songs we play. We rounded off the night by playing the best of those numbers. A snippet of our most popular – selected by thirteen of us as a fave – is at the end of this post.

For that first night, Simon was joined by Rufus & Dave Suich, followed by Chris from the second session. The rest of us have joined at different times from 2011 onwards. We’ve seen quite a turnover as people move in & out of London, change jobs or just get too busy to keep playing.

Over the ten years, we’ve had around a hundred regular members  – with us having up to 25 current at any time (about the most we can comfortably cram upstairs at the Lewis Club) – & around a hundred one-off visitors, usually arriving just after Xmas with a brand-new uke & New Year’s resolution to learn an instrument (which dissolves by the end of January!).

Plus we regularly receive visitors from people holidaying in London – we get plenty of people from the thriving uke communities in Australia, the USA & Germany, as well as others from elsewhere in the UK who pop in when they are passing through. So, if you’re ever nearby on a Tuesday evening with your ukulele, feel free to get in touch & join us for the night!

Eleven of the current fifteen regulars managed to attend the celebratory session: Andrew, Bob, Colin, Dave S, Gail, Jeanette, Jos (hotfoot back from Portugal), Richard, Rufus, Simon & Steve.  Many thanks to the owner of the Lewis Club, Julie, who looks after us & lets us rehearse there every week.

Members’ choice of the most popular song we currently perform (rehearsal snippet filmed by Justin Gates, an Australian visitor with his father, Richard (from MUG in Perth), earlier this year) :

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PLUC – Ten Years On

Image from DepositPhotos

Next month is PLUC’s tenth birthday.

Founder, Simon, is doing us a blast from the past by digging out the original songbooks used for those early sessions. And to contrast with that, the current regulars have voted on their favourite & least favourite numbers of the one hundred & nine tunes we now play, so we will be announcing our latest PLUC Top Ten Tunes & slotting them in too on the night.

If you’re an ex-member who would like to attend the celebratory evening, do get in touch to learn more details & book a place.

 

Pratts Bottom Village Fete May 2018

This year’s fete saw the rain start just as we started performing! But we remained largely dry under the marquee, playing two sets of twelve songs in each half, each around forty-five minutes.

PLUC at Pratts Bottom Village Fete, Sat 12 May 2018

Band members are: front row L – R – Chris, Jeanette & Rufus; middle row L – R – Bob, Andrew & Steve; back row L – R – Colin, Dave & Marie. Here we are with our version of Lady Madonna:

During our interval, Colin’s band Famous Last Words played a forty minute set, culminating with a rocking version of the theme tune to Fireball XL5 from their lead singer & mandolinist, another Dave.

Our loyal but rather soggy audience including PLUC member Dave P & his wife, Chris, plus their mates – yet another Dave & his wife – remained under their brolleys for the second half, even managing to grab a couple of video clips of us. In keeping with the day’s theme, this one is a Chas ‘n’ Dave stalwart, Ain’t No Pleasing You:

As ever, we’re available for charity events, ukulele festivals and private bookings, so do get in touch if you’d like us to perform for you.

We hope to get more videos up of us playing on our WebmasterPLUC YouTube channel.

 

Pratts Bottom Village Fete May 2017

Once again we had a very enjoyable afternoon performing at the Pratts Bottom Village Fete. The rain held off & things weren’t as windy as last year!

Here are a few photos of us between sets. As always, we’re available for bookings so contact us if you’d like us to perform at your event.

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Hollesley 2016 – Farewell

It was that Hollesley time of year again, but sunny Suffolk was a mix of joy and sadness as it was to be the last year at this site. Still it didn’t dampen the spirits, the revelry or uke playing.

Hollesley 2016 – Phil Doleman, Rufus & others playing Enjoy Yourself (filmed by almuzo):

 

Pratts Bottom Village Fete May 2016

This year saw fine weather for our annual Pratts Bottom Village Fete gig so Chris arranged for us to be outside under a gazebo, instead of indoors in the Village Hall.

The wind proved an entertaining challenge: whilst we had remembered to bring pegs to ensure our songsheets stayed in place, Bob’s music stand decided to swing round like the sail of a boat &, at times, Colin had to hold down his pages with his foot – an interesting new playing technique!

We had an excellent day. Andrew has caught some of our setting up, clearing down and the obligatory post gig drinks in the local hostelry in this set of photos:

 

Sheila’s Birthday Bash 1

We were delighted to be asked to play at Sheila’s birthday party – a joint do for her fiftieth & her cousin Jenny’s fortieth – down in Horn Park, Lee. It was the first time the entire group of us has performed a public gig & went absolutely splendidly.

We played two sets of our favourite numbers – twenty songs in total. There are some videos on the way of a few of the tunes and here are a few photos of the event.

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Playing on the day were:

Back Row (L – R): Ed, Eddie, Steve, Anya, Jos, Tina, Kev, Emma & Maria

Front Row (L – R): Andrew, Rufus, Chris, Jeanette, Bob, Simon, Sheila & Colin