There are bands that are inspirational and some that are just totally entertaining. To be able to be either of those things and be unique is very rare. The Dancing Did, through their front man and his incredible articulate, educated lyrics, sang about the countryside around the Vale of Evesham, the plight of its people, the folk lore, the lorry pirates, the gypsies and the day Bo Diddly nearly came to Evesham. Musically they were a – just go and listen I can’t explain.

Evesham at the beginning of the 1980’s was a hotbed of creative people, with other bands like ‘The Photos’ and ‘And Also The Trees’ living within a small radius of The Vauxhall Inn, the favorite watering hole at the time and also the home of Nicola (Baby Go slippers) Mumford – more here.

My affection for ‘The Did’ is for two reasons, they were fun to be around and they were the reason why ‘Finish The Story’ formed.

In 2007 Cherry Red released a retrospective of their work which included some live tracks which I by chance recorded at Cheltenham College, I was there to record ‘Blurt’ and had some tape over so this unique moment was recorded.