Today’s sing-around might have been the last one at The Plough Inn for a while, depending on when it actually shuts its doors. I decided to take my six string Sei Flamboyant bass for a number of reasons: I don’t think I’ve given it an outing there before, I haven’t really found much time to play it since it came back from the luthiers and it opens up much fluidity in approaching songs than I can apply on most other instruments. I also took my amp, my Zoom B3 FX box (much more portable than the Helix) and my Jackery battery so I didn’t need to try and find somewhere to plug in.

It was a pretty busy session so I just got to lead three songs. Early on, I chipped in Diving Duck Blues. I did that last week at the Bluegrass jam but, on the bass, I was also able to throw in the riff from the Taj Mahal version. On my second go, I went with Fly Me to the Moon – a little harder for others to play along with but a good one to exercise my comping chops. Finally, it fell to me to close the afternoon so I opted for Valerie (The Zutons / Amy Winehouse). The verse vamps around a couple of chords, the chorus is mainly around another couple of chords and there’s one more required to pivot back to the first vamp. It’s also pretty well known as a song and I’m confident on the vocals and able to give a strong lead to bring people along.

How did the bass do? Brilliantly. I’m very happy with the work that was done and, with better access to the battery compartment, I think I’ll be making more use of it in active mode again.