Ever had one of those dreams when you suddenly find that you are naked in a public place? Well an embarrassing stage moment is a little like that. Quill classics include a former fiddle player falling through the stage, still playing, which for my money is a pretty impressive stunt: clothing riding up or literally coming apart at the seams and complete mechanical or operator error.
Joys specialty seems to consist of items of clothing that misbehave shall we say. Her trousers have split and not so long ago a top suddenly decided to unhook itself completely at the back. She handled these of course with her usual aplomb. A little more difficult to escape was a terrible moment offstage at a caravan park in Cornwall, that involved both of us. We were getting changed in a tiny little loo, that didn't lock, and had reached the point of being completely starkers when the young compere opened the door. There was nowhere to hide, for a split second the three of us exchanged glances of complete and utter horror before the hapless young man took his leave muttering apologies. When we were respectable again we all had a good laugh about it.
My classics include strings breaking at the quietest moment of the quietest song and last weekend a horribly obvious wrong note in Young At Heart when my bow hair got caught on the bridge. Something had to give and this time it was the tuning.
Going back to clothes or lack of them I am forced to remember an occasion at Butlins Bognor when a particularly short dress that never rode up decided of course to ride up at the back over my new shiny tights. Was I wearing anything underneath was I heck, trying to avoid the deadly VPL.Our drummer of the time certainly got an eyeful as it proved impossible to play Jig A Jig and pull it down at the same time- most embarrassing. These days its sensible double gussets for me, sod vanity.
Our guitarist Paul had his own special moment, the curse of Le Frog due to an over large gland (Paul can explain which one). Le Frog would manifest itself as a sudden croak in his voice when he was singing lead vocal. I never thought they were that bad myself. .
Dave Bailey has known some uncomfortable moments in his long musical career. On one occasion he discovered that the previous band had covered his keyboards in Vaseline, not good showmanship on their part although it must have made for an interesting introduction. Another memorable event was a live TV show that he recorded in the early seventies. The timing was crucial and the band was supposed to play for about 3 or 4 minutes at the most. However, the guitarist got thoroughly carried away and played an extended solo lasting 8 minutes. The terribly clipped English announcers were going ballistic, the producer was red in face with anger and in a last desperate attempt to get the bands attention they took off their coats and whirled them round and their heads like matadors at a bullfight.
My all time best comedy moments have to be the smoke machine getting stuck at Stourbridge Christian centre obliterating the band completely and most of the audience, and the piece de resistance of all dodgy moments, the alternative Quill wedding dance. This occurred at a very well to do wedding in Berkshire and the Bride and Groom had asked us to play "Show Me Heaven" as their romantic first dance. This was not an easy task but we dutifully learnt it and the scene was set, bride in her beautiful dress gazing adoringly up at the groom all the guests looking indulgently on. The keyboards played the first chord and as the rest of us joined in it became clear that something was very wrong. In fact it was the most god-awful noise I have ever heard in my life. The keyboards had been programmed incorrectly and had started far too high, but the rest of us were still playing in the original key. The happy couple looked slightly perplexed but carried on regardless. We did discover eventually what had happened and the second half of the song sounded something like it was supposed to. Ben covered our backs by asking the wedding video man to replace our version with the original. These days we always check the keyboards so fear not future brides and grooms.
These are just a few of our dodgy moments. It's been great fun remembering them. I like to think that they're proof that the music is live and the people are real. It's all part of the entertainment.

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