As well as making it my new year's resolution to play one gig a week, I would also like to hit one new venue a month. Thinking about it, for all the gigs I did in 2010, there were actually only 3 occasions where I went and played somewhere that I'd never been before. Need to broaden the horizons, and I'd never played The Harrow before, so...
Musically, the songs weren't anything new. The difference between this and the many many times I've done open nights before was the song order. I opened this time with Bitterness, the song I would normally close with. Reason? Well, I was consicious of the fact that there were a significant number of people, including Sam Draisey who runs the night, who have seen me before and heard me close the set with this song several times already. It's the song that seems to go down best when I play live so I wanted to play it at some point, and as I always finish it wanting to play some more, the start seemed to be as good a place to put it as any. Apart from the usual trouble with the mic stand it seemed to go very well!
Next was my other big gun, Get Out Of My Head, and it was around about this time that I started looking around and seeing the bar staff watch me with some interest. Funnily enough I change the lyrics to the chorus almost every time I play it; in the second line I either sing "I can't get depressed" or "I can't get obsessed." I don't know why. Both lyrics seem to fit. The original lyric - the version I have written down - is "obsessed," but it basically depends on how the lyrics flow on the night I'm playing it live. It's also a substantial change of pace from Bitterness, which I've been careful about in the past because it's a good idea to keep the energy going for your first three songs. Not so much in an acoustic setting though, and it didn't seem to make a difference tonight.
Then we came to the part of the show where 2 things happen: 1 I use the "Hi I'm Matt, this is my guitar" spiel, and 2 I played a cover. With the first one, I distinctly heard someone laugh this time, and in genuine amusement, so it's not just another bad joke. With the second, I played High by Feeder. As Feeder are my favourite band of all time it's rare to find a place I've played that I haven't done a Feeder cover at some point. Usually people choose that part of the show to stop listening but for some reason it seemed to go down really well tonight so I'll have to think about that - win their attention with a couple of killer songs THEN play a cover...
After plugging my gig at the Wharf Bar on Saturday I finished up with We Will Survive, which as probably my most energetic song is always worth playing. Need to work out how I'm going to play in the second verse; fair enough it's supposed to be quieter but I was almost muting it tonight. And to this day I think "Hurricanes and alvalanches, Fodder for the human monsters" is a bit of a clumsy lyric, although as it's been nearly 3 years since I wrote that song, I doubt it will change. It rarely goes down badly, but I also rarely play it exactly the same way twice.
Also Dan who's a regular there was saying he's doing an open night on Sundays at the Goalpost in Wolverhampton, so it might be worth going down there one of the nights. Probably not this week though, as tonight and the Wharf Bar will more than fill my requirements for one gig a week.
I've got a good feeling about how it went tonight, I really have. I'll definitely be back there but I really need to get some new songs into my set. Can't keep playing the same show over and over again
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