23/21/2011: The Holly Bush, Cradley Heath

This was another gig put on by Cal and Joy from Prickly Promotions. They put me on first again and I was left with the unenviable task of opening the night, which in front of a very unfamiliar crowd (which included my Dad and my brother, neither of whom had been to any of my gigs for years) was always going to be a challenge.

So what made me think it was a good idea to open with Storm from the North? It's not exactly my most accessible song and would usually go somewhere around the middle. I've opened with it in the recent past but it works better in front of people who have seen me before and have heard me open with the same 3 songs a number of times. That being said, I played the song well, with the exception of maybe one fluffed chord.

After introducing myself and making the Shrewish Vegan comment, I launched in to Bitterness - the clean version, as there were kids in the audience. It's funny, I spend 9/10 years refusing to write swearing in to my songs, with one or two very notable exceptions (anyone remember Jacobean Tragedy?) and now that I finally do, I come to realise just how constricting it can be with regard to my set list. I don't even bother playing A Lonely Night if there's kids in the audience; it's just too problematical for that. The song went as well as it ever does, though I may need a new capo before too long as I think the spring is going in the one I'm currently using.

Get Out Of My Head was next. I played this one OK and covered up the times I nearly forgot the words with some very slight delays in delivering the vocals, which added to it actually. Not sure if it was the right audience for it - it's the arty kind of song that tends to go down better in front of an older audience than this - but the response had been quite flat up to this point and I was thinking I'd have to rescue the set with a couple of covers at the end, so I wanted to get my heavyweights out first.

At that point I launched in to one song that is always guaranteed to go down well: A Little Respect by Erasure/Wheatus. There were some people in the crowd who knew it, and I saw Cal having a dance while manning the door to the room, but I think the fact that I cheered up made this song work as much as anything else. After all, I don't sound much like the guys from Erasure or Wheatus! Slightly mistimed on some of those chords, which I put down to lack of practice as this was the first time I'd picked up my guitar for about a week.

After asking the audience if they wanted a happy song or a sad song, I got the reply that I'm always going to get to such a question: Happy. I followed it up by joking that it writes off most of my set list, and went in to Never Forget You by the Noisettes. I don't know how many people knew it but it was the best I've ever played that one, either on my own or with the band, and as a set closer I could have picked far worse songs than this.

So tonight was made tough by the unfamiliarity of the audience, and for that reason I'd probably have been better off aiming for a standard set peppered with slightly more than the usual number of covers. Something to keep in mind for next week when I'm playing the Cancer Research afternoon event for Prickly. All things considered though, I think I did a good job. If I'd change anything it would be the position of the stool, as I was constantly having to lean forward on a stool that felt a few pounds away from breaking anyway, and this would have meant an admittedly comical but not entirely welcome fall down the stairs. Thanks to everyone who came, see you all again next week!