It struck me just how many pubs there are called The Woodman... I guess it's like the Red Lion, every town has at least one. So for the benefit of those of you who don't know where I mean, I mean the one in Bilbrook, Codsall, that my friend Sam Draisey hosts. Overall, I wasn't too pleased with myself tonight...
I kicked off with Girl's Names. Not quite sure why I did this except that I wanted to do something different from Get Out Of My Head or Bitterness, which can be quite predictable as my set openers. This was pretty much the only song tonight that I played perfectly, which for how many times I've not played it perfectly is very much a good thing. But somehow I managed to feel... comfortable. No, that's not a good thing at all, there's no danger there, there's no risk that it could all go wrong, I know people like that song and that it's a good one to open with, and it lent itself to a situation that I never really wanted to be in where I'm going through the motions. Not sure what I can do about that...
Next I announced that I had some new songs to show them, and played Dear Mr Manager once again. Despite the fact that I'd been going over the lyrics in my head pretty much all day I STILL managed to forget the second verse halfway through, and stopped in the middle of the song while I worked it out. The rest of it I guess I played OK. Actually somebody came up to me in the toilet after and said that they really liked that song, remembering what it was called and everything, which was nice. Thinking about it, after I'd finished the first verse - which describes somebody making a complaint about a salesman - I mentioned that I used to work in retail, which may have struck a chord with some of the guys in the room, most of whom will have worked in a shop at sometimes. Or maybe it's because I fingerpick the chords rather than strum them; that works well as well. But I need to be able to get through that one without stopping, I can't keep messing it up.
I then joked that as most people who'd seen me before would know, I'm not reknowned for writing happy songs, so after writing this one [The Most Beautiful Woman I Know] I wondered what on earth was the matter with me. This was the first time I've ever played that song live and I actually think it went OK; I'm not sure how it went down because the thing about the Woodman is that there's about 10 feet between the stage and the door to the toilets, so the audience tends to be to your left and right but not straight ahead; a crowd reaction is difficult to guauge in such circumstances! Messed up on one tiny picking bit I've got in there, which may seem superficial but I do need to get that right.
Because it tends to go down well wherever I play it, I finished up with Bitterness, which was actually quite tricky because for some reason today I couldn't get those fast strumming sections right. I also forgot the words in a stupid place... However I did hear the unmistakable sounds of Kayla and her friends making percussive sounds with various different things when I was banging on the guitar, which makes me think that yes, people know this song and are really starting to like it! One day I'm going to bang on the guitar so hard I put my hand through it, but until then...
So what was the problem tonight? For whatever reason, I wasn't concentrating very hard, so when I lost it it was hard to get it back on track. I don't know why this was, right now I'm wondering if it relates to opening with a less interesting song... but whatever the reason, it needs to be fixed, because I've spent quite a bit of time this week berating some of my students for losing concentration in the middle of songs and now I'm going around doing it at gigs, for crying out loud.
I've noticed something that I noticed with Crashpoint with regard to who enjoys what song... when I think about it, songs like Bitterness and We Will Survive tend to be enjoyed more by the younger members of the audience; you need a bit of imagination to call them 'fast rock songs' but they're certainly more agressive and it's the younger guys, say below 30, who come up to me after a gig and tell me that that's the song they enjoyed the most out of my set. Whereas songs like Get Out Of My Head and more recently Dear Mr Manager tend to be enjoyed more by the older guys in the audience. It was a similar story with my former band so there must be a reason for it...
We all like to be entertained but I think with the younger guys they like to be excited as well, they like the angst and agression and the feeling that I'm putting some real power and passion in to my songs. Maybe because they've seen it all already, the older guys tend to look for the more subtle songs, the ones that use something more complex than simple strumming, the ones that take a more 'story-telling' approach to the lyrics.
Obviously when I do gigs there's usually several of both so it's unlikely that I'll construct a set based around one or the other. But if it ever does come up, it's there if I need it.
Not sure when the next one's going to be. Probably my last one for this month. I'll keep you posted.
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