I was getting rather despondant about the fact that I wasn't going to get a gig in this week, despite the different New Year's Resolution for this year removing any obligation to do so. So imagine how pleased I was when I checked the messages on my phone and found Sam had asked me to play tonight. It meant I had to cancel a games night with Dave, but I actually really wanted to play this one, so I was more than pleased to be there and was reasonably relaxed through the whole thing, which made all the difference.
I kicked off with Storm from the North, which is actually going down quite well these days as my opening number. The changing times would lend itself better for a mid-set song, which to be fair is where I normally put it, but as an opening statement of intent I could do far worse than this.
Next came Girl's Names, which I play every time I'm at Katies, and is also on the demo so I wasn't going to make any exceptions tonight! It all seems to be flowing together with that song now, the country lick I do at the start isn't always as accurate as it might be but actually playing it is almost effortless, which is not a bad position to be in. I could have done without forgetting the words at the start but all it meant was I had to keep the intro going for a little longer.
And here came my only major mistake of the night: Because The Night by Patti Smith. It was going really really well - I was making all the use I could of the varying dynamic of my guitar and voice - until I got to the middle part where I forgot the words. I tried to make a bit of a joke about it by asking the audience if they knew what the words were, it didn't really work but I just said 'fuck it' and skipped to the last chorus. I admit it was rather embarrasing.
Back to my own material where I belong: We Will Survive with the slow intro. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep getting away with this, because the last few times I've played it with this intro have been at Acoustic Brew shows and it's probably getting old now. But I like doing it so if I play this song anywhere else with a reasonably familiar audience I'll do it again.
Then after a furious struggle to try to remember what the song was called, I went in to Get Out Of My Head. It's wierd because with the gigs I've been doing lately, it's been quite some time since I've played this one and I had to concentrate to remember what the words were in the second verse; not something I imagined for how long I usually play it! I think I need to get a more established practice routine.
As it was a slightly longer than usual gig I decided to play Chapter One. Namedropping Perry Barr rarely has the required effect; I'm going for sympathy, I tend to get incredulity. But apart from once where I played the wrong chord, the song went very well. I picked the right time at the gig, I think, to reduce the volume almost to a whisper; I had everyone's attention by then and you could have heard a pin drop in the room.
My second cover of the night was Do The Strand by Roxy Music. This was a bit of a funny one; Sam liked it but I think my audience was a little too young to remember Roxy Music. The reaction I got from them when I finished playing the song said to me 'What the hell was that?!' but in the good kind of way. I guess it's a bit more of a challenge to listen to than my usual quite standard song structures. I forgot the words to this one as well, but thankfully it was the bit just after the instrumental section so to cover it up I kept it going until such time as I could remember what they were.
I introduced my relatively new song as A Lonely Night, it's nice to be able to play this one in an environment where I can get away with it! I'm developing the performance with this song to the point where I can inject some of my usual swagger into it, which helps with the delivery! Which is good, because as Dave noticed that yes in fact I did near enough copy the tune off Dani California by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I need to inject as much of my own personality into this as possible.
I finished off, of course, with what was quite possibly my best ever performance of Bitterness. It had been a great gig up to that point and I had the audience attentive and listening, my voice was warmed up and was as good as it was going to get, my hands were warmed up so I had no problem with the fast strums, it all worked very well indeed. I came away from this one feeling a lot better than I had at some of my more recent shows!
I'll put that down as one of my better ones, I think. The music seems to be working and the slightly longer set did me a favour as I could develop my set a little bit, rather than getting all my big guns out and making sure I've used them by the time I leave the stage. It went well, and I'm looking forward to the next one! No plans for another gig as yet though.
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