Well, tonight didn't get off to a flying start. I had actually intended to go to the Tap and Spile, or the Pretty Bricks in Walsall, basically because I've got a gig at the Wharf on Saturday and I'm looking to do SOMETHING to promote it. This didn't go to plan, I arrived at the pub to find that it was closed, probably for some time. Combine that with going to the Drunken Duck on Monday to find that their jam night was actually on Tuesday and the week's not looking good for me...
I turned up at the Woodman at 10 to find the usual crowd there; no bad thing because they're a great bunch of people. After a short wait, Sam got me on, and what followed was the best I'd felt about a set that I'd done for a while:
Tripped up a bit with Bitterness. The positioning of that song's always an issue with me; do I put it at the start and set the pace and adrenaline for the whole show, or do I put it at the end when my hands have warmed up and there's an outside chance of being able to play the fast strums? My plectrum didn't help. The thing about being a teacher, as I lost no time in telling the audience afterwards, is that you'll always end a working day with half the number of plectrums that you had when you started it. I have one carbon-feeling plectrum that tends to snap if I strum too hard (and I strum hard!) and one millimetre-thick plectrum that's fine for picking, not so good for strumming - this was the one I used. But it made it hard work for me. Other than that, it went OK, it's as familiar as any of my songs get, particularly with this crowd who Elliot tells me enjoyed it, and I made no major mistakes.
My plan for the day was to play Dear Mr Manager all the way through without having to stop to remember the words, and while there were a few points here where I messed up, it was nothing particularly horrible and I did manage to get all the way through. So that one's getting better! About time too, though I'm not happy with the precedent it's setting for how long I'm going to get my new songs to playable levels. I think I need to be careful where in the set I put this song; I doubt straight after Bitterness is a good idea, because from loud and brash to almost a whisper is probably too vast a change in dynamics. But hey, that's not the point of an open mic night; at least I didn't have any key drones. Not sure how well it went down; it's not one that's been talked about much so far and would tend to be more popular with the older members of the audience - who I spend far less time talking to than Sam and his friends. Not casting aspersions on them or anything like that, that's just the way it is.
Next I played a cover that I'd never really played live before, Linger by The Cranberries. I had to concentrate on the words but that actually went really well, people were singing along to it and everything! I guess that's a nice song to break out if I need some respite from my insufferable self-pity, it certainly did me no harm tonight.
By this time I was feeling really good about how it was going and launched into the most energetic performance of Get Out Of My Head I think I've done so far. Usually, as my opener, that's the one that's got to win the crowd over and would set the tone for the gig. Now that I'd been on the stage for a few songs, I could relax a little and enjoy playing it, which I'm choosing to think made everybody else enjoy the song a lot more as well. I'll have to give that some serious consideration, not least because I've got a 7-song set list to come up with for Saturday.
So, all's well that ends well. And that's not something I say a great many times! Thanks again to Sam and Roy for putting the night on, we really appreciate it and it's going really well, I think. Need to get him doing one in Birmingham though; it's screaming for something like that...
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