First Dance Friday: Lovecats

Penny & The Sausages are a party band first and foremost. We all cut our chops in the Leeds punk scene, so we play everything a bit fast, as if we are still under threat of the plug being pulled by the bar manager at the Packhorse. This sort of warp speed serves well to demonstrate what excellent, nimble-fingered musicians the Sausages are -and they really are- and also to cover up my passable vocals (no false modesty here - you all know female wedding singers are normally ASTOUNDING). It's also an incitement for our audience to DANCE, and dance they always do, which is a lovely and refreshing feeling after 15 or more years of The Head Nod, AKA the Scenester Dance.

Actually, does anyone say "scenester" anymore? Do I sound like a Grandma?.

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A crowd throwing shapes is brilliant at a wedding, but it's not the same as First-Dance dancing. My Sausages and I have tried to do a slow song before (Against All Odds, if you were wondering) and it sounded so strange and empty we haven't really tried again since. But I still harbour elaborate Wedding Singer fantasies of hitting the perfect high note as the newly weds swoosh across the marquee under the fairylights, and Aunty Pat sheds a tear at the beauty and romance (mentally noting to book the P & Sausages for her 60th next year).

Realistically speaking I'm not sure if that will ever happen. UNLESS the couple get us to play an upbeat song. You know, the sort with choreography. I didn't think the Sausages could do swing until we tried this (for a very important upcoming 30th birthday party):



What a great first dance this would be! A few dance lessons and a stylish couple to execute them - it would be painfully cool. I only wish Sam and I had been co-ordinated enough to have practiced steps for our own - but the Lindy Hop lessons we took for the best part of a year only resulted in stubbed toes and impassioned arguments over what bit came next.

Have you been to a wedding with a choreographed first dance? Have you been to a wedding with ....a FLASHMOB?