The Do Riders debut in Newcastle

It was a week of grizzling about the weather. It'll never happen ... it's gunna flog down on Sunday ... we should still rehearse though ...

Lucky we rehearsed. The rain flogging happened on the South Coast of NSW and not on us at all. We had a lovely day.

The Darby St Coffee & Chocolate Festival was a great Novocastrian launch for us Do Riders. People stopped and marvelled. Well, maybe 'marvel' is too strong a word. But there was obviously a lot of 'like' out there about what we do.

A highlight for me was a young woman who clearly was delighted by our version of 'Love Cats' (by The Cure) - she recorded the audio on her mobile phone, then she signed up on our mailing list.

Despite the wind we decided to try out the 'gather around a single condenser mic' bluegrass type thing. It provides for wonderful interaction between us, and looks good for the audience, and we can hear each other a lot better, particularly vocally. You gather in a semi-circle around the mic and move in and out depending upon what instrument or voice you wish to highlight. There is quite a bit of technique involved and we will be learning that for a while.

Another highlight for myself was a comment from a woman who I have seen from the Darby St coffee lifestyle. She only knows me vaguely, but doesn't know my history.

What you do is great fun! Were you in Newcastle in the 1980s and did you ever see a band called the Castanets?. I said I was in them. She then sort of recognised me, or remembered at least the name (I was Kevin Mancini). Clearly the Castanets was a good apprenticeship for me and has heavily influenced my performance style!

It was great to have most of our parents attend! Despite being in our mid-late forties, we still had the supportive parents there! How funny is that! The only ones missing were the ones who live in Forbes. OK. We can forgive that. A seven hour drive to see your daughter play in a new band would be a big call...

Now to try what we do in the pub situation. We are really looking forward to the Great Northern Hotel on Thursday week! We are loving what we are doing and are really enjoying each other's company. This is what music should be about.

And we are gunning to get the parents from Forbes along some time. Or we will play out there.