Here we are again. Actually to be fair this one was because of what else I've got going on this week (band practice with the Fakes on Tuesday, helping out at a Rock Gig for DPA on Wednesday, maybe band practice with Perception on Thursday, and then doing the Pioneer weekend for DPA on, well, the weekend) making doing a gig at any other time quite difficult. But hey, I need no excuse to go to an open night. That being said, with another gig at the Wharf coming up, maybe I should be concentrating more on hitting Walsall... still, here's what happened tonight:
Even though I've tried to do some new material over the past few gigs, I've not really done it very well. And I was conscious of the fact that I haven't done much (or indeed, any) practice since last time I played Katies. With that in mind, I decided to play songs that I actually knew tonight. With hindsight, maybe kicking off a night with Prisoner of my Mind was not a brilliant idea, it's pretty much the most desolate wrist-slasher I play at the moment (speaking figuratively, of course,) and opening what for many people will be a night out with a Radiohead-style shoe-gazer hardly does much to set the tone. Still, I played it OK, which is good because it's been a LONG time since I last played it...
I then went in to Get Out Of My Head. I played it quite well, though I wasn't really feeling much energy from it. It was quite amusing, actually, when I sang the line 'And then a car goes past and I can't believe what I saw,' at precisely the same moment some unidentified emergency vehicle zoomed past the pub with it's sirens on full blast. Unfortunately this was one of those occasions where this song didn't go down too well, as I finished the song and absolutely nothing happened for about four or five seconds, then LC started off the clapping which didn't last too long. I don't know what it is about this song that has that effect on people but it seems to be a bit hit and miss and I really can't work out why.
I finished it with Bitterness, and again even though I was playing it OK I wasn't feeling much energy. I guess that's the problem with going on first; there were quite a few people in the pub but as most of them were either waiting to play themselves, in which case their focus would have been on their own sets, or had just come in and getting the drinks in, there wasn't much attention on what was going on. Still, I came across an old friend Shaw who does Zaneus promotions on and off, who told me he liked it so I can't argue with that.
So, not a highlight of my gigs so far this year. What made it significant for me was making some new friends and most of all running into another old friend Emma, who used to be in Crashpoint. She was there playing a set with some other people as a kind of band set-up, fair play to her. Hearing her sing took me right back to the Crashpoint days back in 09... it saddens me, actually, to see people who've been in bands in the past, and now go around doing acoustic sets because they can't hold the band together. Not to be presumptuous about Emma - she originally left Crashpoint because she literally couldn't sing that style of music any more, and from what I remember of her musical tastes this new set-up probably suits her better in any case - but it's quite a common thing to see, myself included. This one hit me quite hard because it was my band she was in... anyway, this made the night significant for me because it became the inspiration for a new set of lyrics that hopefully I'll have time to work through tomorrow. Seriously, I'm going to need about a week to work on all my new songs and get them ready to play.
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