Thursday night took us back over the Severn to Elmore Court for a summer wedding in the Gillyflower - a room we’re in often enough that the load-in runs on muscle memory. Some weddings have a thread running through the music, and this one was Britpop: Richard Ashcroft over the slideshow, Noel Gallagher for the first dance, Oasis in the set.
Slideshow, first dance, then us
The evening ran in an order we’re seeing more of, and it worked well. A photo slideshow first, with the room in and the lights down, soundtracked by “Lucky Man” - then straight into the first dance without a break, to “Flying on the Ground” by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Both on record. Then us, three sets.
Couples sometimes feel awkward asking a live band to sit out the first dance. Don’t. If the recording is the version that means something to you, use the recording - and if you’re running a slideshow beforehand, keeping both on playback lets the whole sequence run as one continuous moment instead of stopping for a changeover halfway through. “Flying on the Ground” is also a big, slow-building record; forcing it into a band arrangement would have taken something off it. We’d far rather cue the room properly and come in fresh afterwards.
Don’t Look Back In Anger, straight
“Don’t Look Back In Anger” is already in our book, but not in a way you’d recognise from the record - we normally play our own arrangement. For this wedding we put the original back on: the piano intro as written, the tempo where Noel left it, no reinvention. Everyone in the room from about eight years old upwards had an arm round somebody by the second chorus.
If there’s a song you love and you want it the way you know it, say so. Most bands, us included, have house arrangements of the big ones, and we’re happy to drop them for the night if the original is what matters to you.
Wonderwall, which we never play
“Wonderwall” isn’t in our set and never has been - it’s the song every acoustic guitar in every pub has already worn out. But it’s also a song a whole room can sing without being asked, which is exactly what you want somewhere in the back half of a wedding. We put it in for this couple and the Gillyflower did the rest, with nobody needing the words.
Three Gallagher-adjacent songs in one night is more than we’d normally programme, but a request list that specific tells you what the room wants. Give your band three or four songs that mean something to you rather than a fifty-song spreadsheet, and they’ll put them where they work best.
Pizza, and a very careful pizza van
Outside, a wood-fired pizza van was turning out some of the best food we’ve had at a wedding this year. August in Gloucestershire has left everything scorched brown, so there was a lot of careful hovering around that oven.
Thursday weddings, still going strong
This was a Thursday, and it was a full room all night. Midweek weddings get you better choice of date and better rates.
The Gillyflower at Elmore Court has its own Funktion One system and a lighting rig on the circular truss. It is one of the rooms on our Gloucestershire wedding band patch.
Congratulations to the couple, and thanks for a proper singalong.
The Brotherhood are South Wales’ premier wedding and corporate band, playing weddings across Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds. Get in touch to check our availability for your date.
