The Poco Loco story: 2003

5 February - Under One Sky, Blackpool Tower.
We were used to hibernating until well in to Spring, so this was welcome but a shock to the collective system. Lots of school kids from across the Fylde coast descended on the Tower ballroom for a full day of various multi-cultural experiences, from dressing and dancing in Indian traditional costume to playing along with Poco Loco. We and our raw recruits were last on, parading from the rear of the ballroom through the crowd and up on to the stage. Fair to say we stole the show, judging from the crowd’s response.

8 February - Blackburn Art Gallery.
Still shell-shocked from the Tower, here we are outside an art gallery down a side street, playing to no-one in particular while dignitaries are inside scoffing the nosh and thinking “What's that noise outside?". Jack Straw MP wanders by, clearly wishing he could put on a yellow sweat shirt and make a fool of himself. We enjoyed this one, despite the cold.

Poco Loco - The Debut CD.
During this time, work continued on our CD, with Stan putting in hours sweating over a hot computer mixing the thing and trying to please everyone with track running order and visuals. The global nature of music production is illustrated by us sending the master over to Australia for copying. The finished article looks The Business and at £5 is a darned good buy. We’re quite proud of this.

5 May - May Day Gala, Townley Park, Burnley.
Notable for a couple of altercations with local lads, a never ending speech by a politician and a cold wind, this event saw us hiding in the park’s café rather a lot.

17 May - Puppet Up!, Blackpool.
Always a brilliant event, we enjoyed ourselves as usual and if I remember rightly, we defied the rain and got people dancing in a cloudburst. Superb theatre events help make this a special weekend.

28 June - Lancashire Youth Games, Lancaster.
Now if you’re trying to coax a record breaking performance out of young athletes, would you expect to be accompanied by a samba band? Me neither, but there we were, along with the Blowjangles gang, having a nice day in the sun. We must have been OK, because before we left we were asked to come back in 2004.

6 July - Mela Festival, Corporation Park, Blackburn.
This was fantastic. We hadn’t expected to be up on the main stage during this mainly Asian festival, but that’s where we were, crashing through a wizard version of Fast Samba with the initially sceptical audience bouncing along and cheering us at the end of our set. I was so elated afterwards that I went wild and had a decidedly dodgy chilli-burger. Mistake!

12 July - Changing Times, Winter Gardens, Blackpool.
The local Council was publicising its services and we’d been asked to go along and add some colour and rhythm. It was very hot and tee-shirts were much in evidence; even Ken had forsaken his sweatshirt for what must surely have been the first time ever. We played outside for a while, then moved inside. The highlight was parading around the Horseshoe Gallery amongst staff and visitors.

13 July - Lark in the Park, Corporation Park, Blackburn.
This park was becoming our second home, and we did it justice, even overcoming the enforced absence of our MD Stan to get away with what in truth was a ropey performance. It’s always sunny in this park.

19 July - Town Criers Championship, Blackpool.
A fixture in our calendar, we never got going due to the short time we played, but our presence drew attention to the event in the town centre.

3 August - Lions Carnival Parade, Promenade, Blackpool.
The distance from the south edge of the Pleasure Beach to North Pier doesn’t get any shorter, y’know. This is a splendid parade, lots of noise and colourful floats and bands. It is a tradition that it always gets underway late, with no-one seeming to know why, but it’s worth it and while you’re standing around you get to chat to the crowd and get youngsters to have a go on the instruments. Great fun.

9 August - Brierfield Carnival.
Perhaps the weirdest experience of the year, nobody seems to have told the good folk of Brierfield (near Nelson) that they were having a carnival. It was incredibly hot, with even the lolly sticks melting, and to be honest we were rubbish.

17 August - Cleveleys Fun Day.
Much better than last year’s event, perhaps because it didn’t throw it down with rain and so people were more receptive to our music and we were more inclined to play. We had a good jam session near the paddling pool up on the Prom.

Workshops with Leon Patel.
During Autumn 2003 we were treated to a series of inspirational workshops during our regular Wednesday evenings at the First Step Centre on Dickson Road. Leon has played with the best and is a Manchester based musician. His enthusiasm and musical ability, along with a teaching method that includes getting us to sing the rhythms before we play them, prove a real boost to us all as we struggle (and I do mean struggle!) to learn new material.

11 October - Marks and Spencer, Blackpool.
M&S wanted to promote a new credit card and enlisted our help. Their enthusiasm for our music perhaps got the better of judgment, as within minutes of starting to play we were asked if we could play a bit quieter. We had warned them. All was well in the end as we played storming sets outside the entrance on Victoria Street and got good crowd reaction.

17 October - More Music in Morecambe Birthday Party, Morecambe.
We had been invited to take part in this event to celebrate MMM’s birthday, and following a brief rehearsal of rhythms beforehand, we joined in with the massed band and had a good time all round.

2003 had been a strange year for us. It felt at times that we were not making the progress of previous years, and yet in 12 months we released a CD, started learning new, high quality samba rhythms and cemented our reputation across Lancashire for providing good street music for a variety of community-based events. Wonder what 2004 will hold for us . . ?

Ian Ward, 01.12. 03

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