Hardly A Lonely Night at the Copcut Elm, 9/6/2013

So after a long break that I made no secret about, I decided to make the first night I played live for myself again at the Open Mic Night at the Copcut Elm. I've been to the place before and did a 'battle of the acoustic artists' style gig there, I didn't get through but it's probably the fairest I've ever had one decided. That was a couple of years ago. Quite why I felt I had to go all the way to Droitwich to start gigging again was a matter of timing rather than design, but it was a largely unfamiliar crowd - I'd only met the promoter Ben Vickers before - so it was a good a place as any to see how it got on. The people were a bit thin on the ground to begin with, but by the time I went on there were about 40 people in the room so that was good.

The setlist (quite long for an open mic!) was:

• Boys of Summer
• Get Out Of My Head
• Bitterness
• Never Forget You
• A Lonely Night

However that was not the original plan. I had wanted to go down there and play three songs I've never played live before, all covers. I spent the entire car journey singing all three songs to practice them, but I hadn't even got halfway through the first verse to the first song when I forgot the words. More practice needed on that one, I think!

I played the rest of the songs well though, and pulled it back. One or two people were singing along to Boys of Summer, which is always a nice feeling. I'm still in debate about whether or not to sing the first verse of Get Out Of My Head without the guitar, tonight I chose to do exactly that and it was quite an experience when I got to near enough the end of the verse and the entire bar had fallen silent listening to me. That's what I've missed about playing live!

Other highlights? Getting to play A Lonely Night was a welcome but unexpected bonus, and someone out one of the other bands that was on after me told me that she thought Bitterness was hilarious. I told the story before I played the song about the profile I found on the dating site which inspired the song, and I think giving it a bit of context helps, though I should be careful how often I do this. I'll only get away with it as long as people are listening to me.

It's a balance, thinking about it. On one hand, when I have the audience engaged, it can really work to give my songs context, to give the audience some idea of what I'm singing about. On the other hand if I do it too many times I'll deprive the set and therefore the audience of any momentum, so I should probably do it only once every couple of songs. It would be worth planning in advance what I'm going to say about what song, and at what point in the set they are going to come up.

Anyway, after a shaky start, that was not a bad return at all, and I am going to check out a new Open Mic at the Pied Piper in Cannock on Friday so we'll see how that goes down.

See you all there!

Matt

1/9/2012: I held Codfest in my arms...

So hang on, haven't I stopped gigging?

Well, yes, for now. But here I found myself ready to take the stage at Codfest once more! What happened was that I went to Sam's open night at the Hartley Arms on Monday Night, partly for something to do but mostly because I needed a word with Sam about one or two different things and this was as good an opportunity as any. He mentioned right at the end that one of the acoustic acts for the Back Porch stage had pulled out and I offered to do the set for him. Sam gladly accepted, gave me the 2.55 slot and at 2.50 on Saturday after getting lost I managed to get on the car park and hurry on to the stage. Here's how I got on:

I'd specifically chosen a set of songs for this that I thought complimented both my current position of semi-retirement and the fact that I'm fortunate enough to get on stage at quite a big festival (in fact, for this level of gig, Codfest is about as good as it gets.) I opened up with You Held The World In Your Arms by Idlewild, one because it's an absolute belter, and two because my interpretation of it is being given one chance to break out of a very boring lifestyle. Not that my life is boring at the moment, far from it, but it was my first gig in over 4 months so I needed to hit this one with everything I had. What a shame then, that I managed to forget the words to the first verse. In my defence they are near enough the same all the way through with only minor variations but there was a definite feeling of [Brian Griffin sarcasm] "Well, we're off to a good start." That affected my performance for the first couple of minutes but I pulled it together after that and I did see one guy singing along to the chorus so that was pretty good.

I dropped the capo after that for my next song, Storm from the North. Of all the songs I recorded with Sam last year that one's his favourite and I owed him for the gig so I played that one and I'm pleased to say that I've lost none of my attack in the time it's been since I've played it last. I noted in the program, by the way, that Sam described my songs as 'observational.' Well, he knows what this one is all about and the metaphor of the ship fits the situation quite well, and this is something I intend to play up to in future songwriting endeavours!

After that I did Get Out Of My Head, because that's Kayla's favourite. I did it with the a'capello first verse and chorus, which might not have been a wise move given the setting - a festival audience is by their very nature largely unfamiliar and it might have been better to give them the "real" version. However, it's not like I had to worry too much about continuity. Besides, taking the Rammstein approach to it, the recorded version is the best I could make of it at the time but since then I've discovered ways of playing it live that make it all the more enjoyable for me. Given the amount of people who've actually listened to the recording, (2 people on my last Myspace count,) I don't think it's wrong to play it the way I enjoy it as audience expectations are pretty much a secondary consideration!

I've got a bad habit of fiddling with the capo between songs. I knew perfectly well that after the first song I didn't needed the capo after that, and after every song I'd pick it up, put it on the mic stand, get half way to putting it on the guitar before remembering I didn't need it; should not be letting that happen!

Because I played it at the last year and it went quite well, I played Colours of the Wind from the Disney film Pocahontas. Granted I can't sing it quite as well as Judy Kuhn, but I think I did an OK enough job of it. I did notice, though, that it went down better last year when I did it at a later hour; everyone was drunk and wanted to hear songs to sing along to. It was great to play it again though. Intrestingly, what I'd actually intended to do at that point was I'll Make A Man Out Of You from Mulan, but because of my guitar, there was no way I could have done it comfortably without putting the capo on halfway through the song. Barre chords are a pain! However, you can all be rest assured that I can't sing it as well as Donny Osmond either. I haven't got enough teeth.

I finished off with pretty much the most appropriate song I could think of in the circumstances: The Boys of Summer by Don Henley. This is quite a good 'rounding off the summer' song, and being the first day of September I could hardly have picked a better time. It's a nice one to play, not so nice to sing because I can never remember the changing line of the chorus. I know what they all are but I keep forgetting what order they all go in, which resulted in a few stumbles. However, a lot of the audience recognised it and I enjoyed playing it!

So ended my Codfest set. Am I back? No. That was a favour to a friend and I wouldn't like to say that I'm back yet as bar the covers I'm still doing what I was doing when I quit. But it was nice to get on the stage again. Given what Sam was saying about observational songwriting I might try getting in to that again and see if I can get something together that I'd be happy to play on stage. I'd like to drop a stone and a half in weight as well. Until then, it's one-offs like this, or perhaps a gig or two with The Fakes if we can organise it.

So, thanks to Sam and the comittee for organising the festival, biggest and best one yet, couldn't have asked for a better end to the Summer Holidays. See you next year, whether I'm playing or not...