We decide quite early on that we were going to be a bit different and changed our style to a heavier rock sound, playing
material from Deep Purple, Rolling Stones and other heavier sounding bands. We called ourselves "KREED" and did a big medley
from "Tommy" which we only played twice, once at the Center E youth club which was a tryout for our biggest gig to date at
the Wisbech Tech (now called the Isle College)supporting Vandergraffe Generator.
We were driving around in an old Bedford bullnose ambulance which was a relic from the last war. We kitted it out with
extra seats in the front and shelves etc for the gear, lots of the speakers which were homemade by Mick's dad but we had some
good "Laney" gear bought from the music shop in Bury St Edmunds. I had a 100watt Laney PA Mixer amp and two 4x12 columns,
we thought we had a "BIG" PA and I brought my first "Shure" Mic, a Unidyne 3.
We also found ourselves a Roady, Chris Legge, who was great at organising us and sharing some of the driving. A new bass
guitarist was recruited in the form of "Fred" Dave Sculthorpe.
The Isle college gig got us front page headlines in the local rag (The Ely Standard). It had been raining very hard all
night and we had parked our ambulance in front of the big double doors to the side of the hall, to stop any gate crashers,
not thinking that being on grass we would find it diffcult to move when we wanted to. So we loaded up the gear after
the gig and found ourselves stuck up to the axles in the soft mud, where we stayed the night. We were pulled out by a milk
lorry in the early hours of the Sunday morning, hence the newspaper head line "Kreed are a load of stick in the muds".
We did loads of Ely gigs at the old Womens institute hall in Newnham Street and one night we played there when Centre
E were putting on Saint Cecellia (they had a chart hit with "leap up & down & wave your knickers in the air"),
they had seven people turn up as everyone else had come to see us Subsequently, we got banned from the youth club
for months. The youth leader had to pay the band to go home - he was not pleased!!
I left the band when they wanted to go in a different direction and joined "Gravel Road", who promptly took over from
where "Kreed" left off, doing the same material and playing the same venues. They eventually wanted to become a dance band,
so we parted on not very good terms at the time but over the years we have become friends again.
