Sunday 20 October 2013 - Open Garden Scheme (Hot Pans), Buxton (Geoff Olive) (#75

The first gig for HotPans for the 2013-14 season was at an Australian Open Garden function at the home of band member Geoff Olive in Buxton. The spring weather was warm, if a bit windy, and their garden was in beautiful condition. We set up the tents in their garden and played an opening bracket at 11am.

We then enjoyed a great luncheon provided by the Olives, and were about to commence our second bracket at 1pm, when disaster struck. Despite having the tent weighted down with sandbags, a sudden gust of wind raised the tents from above the band and landed them on the roof of Geoff Olive's house!

There was a lot of scurrying around trying to stop the tents from going any further, while others tried to cover the pans to protect them from the strong sun. Eventually, the material was detached from the frames, and the frames of the two tents were moved off the roof and the gardens to a more safe location. Unfortunately, both tents were write-offs, and the frames had to be cut to pieces to be able to get them into a state where they could be later taken to the tip.

So in the space of one week, Triangle Community Steelbands have lost all the roofs over their heads; first, we were evicted from the rehearsal rooms at the Taggerty school and now we have lost our tents. Things can only get better for the rest of the season (-: