Interesting gig, this. I'll be honest, the Wharf is always a tough gig; I'm always at least 15 feet away from any of the 20 people at the most that are in the room at any one time, so my set loses some of it's intimacy and I don't often get the feeling that I create much of an atmosphere while I'm there. It's not that people don't enjoy it, and I'm sure they do, but in a setting like that it's a little difficult to see. I've played the Wharf once every month now since October, the people who were there were mainly there for the other acts on that night, and while I appreciate any gig, I didn't go in to this one feeling that the stakes were particularly high.
Which is probably for the best because I didn't have anything new for them either. I've got about 3 new sets of lyrics that need songs putting to them - one just needs a bit of rehearsal and it's there - and what with everything else that's been going on this week, I haven't had time to work them in to the set. That's an issue I need to address in the coming weeks because I'm still filling out my set with covers, and I really should be beyond that now.
I decided to get the adrenaline going straight away and open with Bitterness, and this at least was a good move because it seemed to go down very well. I played it almost note-perfect, which is good, starting how I mean to carry on, and I got probably one of the bigger cheers once I'd finished.
I went straight in to Get Out Of My Head after that, starting it off with an ill-advised slide up and down the A string. I need to practice that a bit more because I couldn't hit the right note, and I also messed up the second verse and ended up putting words in at the first. Whether or not anybody noticed I couldn't honestly say, because it's only Dave and the sound guy at the wharf who's heard me play that song more than a couple of times, but for some reason that didn't seem to go down as well as I'd expected. To be fair I normally open with it and get a polite but lukewarm applause, maybe I need to prepare myself for the fact that the audience may not enjoy it quite as much as I do.
After announcing once again that Feeder were my favourite band, I played High again. I dropped my plectrum half way through but hey, that's why God gave us fingernails. This actually seemed to go very well and would certainly have been a refreshing change from my introvert lyrics at that point, although as Feeder aren't necessarily all that popular a band, and that song isn't as widely known as some of the others, I shouldn't expect many people to know it.
I then had a go with Grey. I actually think it's the best I've ever played that live, bar one misplaced lyric in the second verse. That being said, I'm not sure what I think of this one yet, it seems to me to be a bit of a mid-card jobber at the moment. I'll have to play it live a few more times to see how it's really going down, on this occasion not very well because I'm pretty sure I heard a 'boo' after I'd finished...
Then I played Believe. This one's always a bit risky because it doesn't come across as particuarly energetic, and it is my quirky/energetic stuff that seems to go down well, but I think when I get to that last chorus it starts to soar. It's not a very happy song though, and to be honest I usually only play it because I don't want to play anything else. It seemed to go down OK... but after having the song going for 4 years now, I'd like to be able to speak more kindly of it than, 'Well I think it's a good song, but it's not usually a very good idea to play it.'
Approaching the end of the set I thought I'd pick the pace up a little bit with Girl's Names. Not sure if it's a particularly good idea to announce the song by saying that the title was inspired by Scrubs, I guess there's only a small number of people who get that. But somehow it sound less cheesey than saying that I wrote it about being stood up. I played it very well, and it seemed to go down OK. Even though I think it's a bit MOR, it's becoming one of my more popular ones so I'll probably keep playing it.
Finally I ended with We Will Survive. I took a risk with this one by singing the a'capello chorus without playing the eflat chord on my guitar to give me the note, and got away with this! I think, as it's probably one of my more energetic ones, coupled with the fact that I'd announced it as my last one, it went down very well and I got a big cheer at the end of it. Then again it might have been because I didn't make a mistake all the way through it! I'd like to think the latter.
Well Terasunda, who were the band on after me and incidentally blew the roof off the place, seemed to like what I had going on, so did the guy who played before me who's name escapes me. Dave is also honest about how he thinks I got on and said I did well tonight so all in all, my first full gig of the year went OK. That's set the bar for the rest of them...
No comments:
Post a Comment