2009 Festival

The first Triple C Corsham festival got underway on Friday 22nd of May 2009. The committee had been busy from the day before, decorating the hall, arranging the seating allocations and preparing the information packs ready for the guests to arrive. Guests turned up from all over the country throughout the day and settled themselves into their accommodation for the weekend, be it B&Bs, caravans or even in tents!! The disco was running from mid afternoon for those who couldn’t wait till the evening to start dancing, but mainly it was a case of meeting old friends and catching up on all the latest news.

Finally, it was time to ‘get the show on the road’ as they say, and at 7.30 the doors opened on the inaugural night. The band for the evening was The Thrillbillies and we all knew that we were in for a great night of music and entertainment with Dave Anderson and Ed Cox. We were not to be disappointed with a great selection of country music from across the years including some very current tracks. There was the usual humour and joking from Dave & Ed, and a good bit of insult trading between Dave and Stu on the disco. And, of course, there was lots of dancing. The evening passed by all too quickly and about midnight everyone headed back to their beds.




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On Saturday morning everyone was back in the hall for the dance workshops. Stuart started the disco up with some social dancing to get people warmed up. Terry & Caroline French started off the workshop sessions with a partner dance choreographed by John & Kate Corbett entitled ‘When She Cries’ to the track of the same name by Restless Heart. Jeff Mills taught a little line dance just before lunch called ‘Buck Wild Stomp’ with a promise to teach the partner version in the afternoon. We had food available on site all weekend courtesy of ‘Wishbone’s Chuck Wagon’ aka Bob & Annette, and a good number of people settled down to enjoy a well prepared lunch menu, while others opted to take a walk into Corsham town centre for a spot of shopping.

In the afternoon Jeff honoured his promise from the morning and, together with Thelma, taught an easy partner version of Buck Wild Stomp and very soon we had line and partner dancers filling the floor. Terry came back on for his line dance teach session and taught a dance called ‘U-Turn’ the music was ‘Your Heart Turned Left’ by Jason Allen. We finished the afternoon session with recaps of the dances taught so we were all ready to dance them in the evening.




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Saturday night’s guest artist was Tony Rouse and he really knew how to get a good thing going with the crowd. The floor was packed all night and with some good singalongs too on some of the classic songs in his repertoire. Tony was joined on stage for the Emil Ford classic ‘What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For’ by the fabulous backing singers ‘Pepper & Shakers’ to help out with the ‘Doo Wops’. But again all things must come to an end and after a fabulous 3 encores it was time for Tony to leave the stage and for the rest of us to head home to get some sleep in readiness for Sunday’s session.

Sunday started off like a Sunday morning should, with some gentle music for social dancing from Stu. Terry & Caroline taught another Partner dance ‘Only Heaven Knows’ choreographed by Ian & Fiona Smith to the Darren Busby track of the same name. Jeff gave us another line dance ‘Red’ to a haunting waltz by Lisbee Stainton’. This took a little bit of concentration from the linedancers but they did succeed with encouragement and dedication from Jeff. By popular request Jeff & Thelma added an additional instruction into the programme and re-taught their latest partner dance ‘Railway Blues’ to Blue Train by John D Loudermilk.

On Sunday evening our guest band was Hayden’s Country Trio. Hayden has visited Triple C a number of times on his own but this was the first time with his trio. Unfortunately one of the regular members of the band, Shane O’Bourne was unwell and unable to be there, but his place alongside Hayden and Aaron was ably filled by Pete Barlow (aka Pedro). The trio gave us a great night’s entertainment and together with Stu on the disco kept the dancers on their feet all night long. In the first break Sandra Wells, Triple C WDC Chairperson, thanked everyone who had worked behind the scenes to put the festival together, thanks were also given to to the instructors, the bands and also to the guests for making the first ever Triple C festival such a success. All of the new dances learnt that weekend were danced during the evening and a great deal of old favourites too. The evening absolutely flew by and everyone had a wonderful time.




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Click on the highlighted dance titles above for a pdf copy of the dance step sheet. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view or print the dance sheet, get a free download here.