Go Now

I received an email on Thursday afternoon offering me, as a member of Lancaster Footlights, free tickets to see a Moody Blues tribute band (Go Now) the following evening. I’ve had these sort of offers before - more usually, discounted prices or a two for one deal - and they generally indicate a lack of ticket sales. A quick check of the Box Office site showed this was indeed the case, with a lot of unsold seats. It seemed that rather than cancel the event they would try instead to fill a few seats by giving them away.
Mrs C is a fan of the Moodies so I thought we’d not turn down the chance of a freebie and duly found ourselves seated mid stalls on Friday night. It rapidly became clear that these were very talented musicians who performed a range of Moody Blues hits from the sixties to the nineties, as well as a couple of numbers from Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. As the evening wore on, we discovered that the band was a project of the drummer, Gordy Marshall, who had actually toured the world with the Moody Blues as well as performing on four world tours of the War of the Worlds. The other musicians were all respected session players and regularly played in West End shows. We also found out that Gordy hailed from just down the road in Blackpool and had his family and friends in the audience - which might explain why the event was not cancelled. I think the lack of ticket sales might be down to it not being properly promoted. They probably could have done more to “big up” the actual Moody Blues connection. Let’s face it, if you can bring out - and play - the actual flute Ray Thomas used to record “Nights in White Satin” it proves a certain level of closeness to the original band. Gordy told us it had been lent to him by Ray’s widow and that it was probably worth more than all the other equipment in the stage put together!
It really was an excellent evening of music, very professionally delivered.