Gigs from 26/8 to 5/9

So this is by far the busiest I have ever been with gigging. I count it 10 in 11 days, and to be perfectly honest blogging up a track-by-track review of all of them would be far more work than it would be fun, even if I could remember what we played! So what I'm going to do instead is give a brief run-down of what they were, where they were, and how it all went down...

26/8/2011
It all started on what I can only describe as a soggy afternoon at the Pulse Festival, just North of Coven, with Natasha and the 82s. This was a relatively short set for us, only 10 songs. I was suffering from having not long changed my guitar strings, and it kept going out of tune in the weeks running up to it and had only just began to settle; not helped by the fact that I hit the thing rather hard! The highlights of the set were definitely Word Up and Sound of the Underground, where I pump up the gain and really let loose on the guitar. The mistakes were there and we knew it, but it was our first gig so we weren't going to be too hard on ourselves.

27/8/2011
The following day I was at The Malt Shovel in Great Barr, playing a Summer Jam festival organised by the Kiesters Brown who I'd met in Stafford a few months before. Lots of summer festivals! There was a distinctly 'British' feel to this one, i.e. it was pouring it down with rain. The festival also suffered from a few pull-outs, so there was quite a bit of time between bands which meant I didn't get to see them all and unfortunately I missed the Kiesters. My set went OK, not the most inspired I've ever felt while playing a gig but my song order was by then becoming quite predictable. That being said, it's the best feeling in the world to see your own lyrics being sung back to you while you're playing, and as a lot of the guys with the Kiesters had seen the video of me that we did in Stafford Uni, a lot of the guys knew my songs already! On the downside, I've really got to stop tapping my foot while I'm doing A Little Respect. It hurts after a while!

28/8/2011
After band practice with Aki Maera we went down to Katies to play their summer festival, and despite it happening in the upstairs bar because the downstairs area was flooded, I actually had a really good time with this one. I almost reversed my setlist, instead opening with Girl's Names (I can play it well enough now to put on a far more convincing performance) and enjoyed it a lot more for all that. Also Dale recorded me singing Wide Open Space, and Amy recorded me singing Girl's Names, so there might be a couple of you-tube videos and a duet with Dale in the runnings before too long...

31/8/2011
That was supposed to be it until Friday but it turns out Emma wanted to book me for the Sunflower Lounge again due to another pull-out. I remember feeling very morose for this one because my mouth was in searing pain, and I adjusted my setlist to put all my miserable songs in there. It actually worked quite well because there was some semblance of consistency in my set, and it was nice to play Dear Mr Manager again; I don't often play it but it fit the bill for tonight. I asked the audience at the end whether they wanted a fast song or a slow song to finish off, somebody said 'fast' and I brought it to a close with Bitterness, a good decision because it always goes down well, Mitch liked it and so did the other guy who played that night!

2/9/2011
Another 82s gig, this one was at the Sneyd Inn and was pretty much our first full gig. It went OK, we were playing the songs better than we did the Friday before. There were booking agents there who were giving us some very useful feedback, for which I am grateful, but there are other things to sort out. For a start, if Rich and Sue are going to do a Name That Tune thing before we start the song, it would really help if they tell me and Jarv first, because if your own band doesn't know what you're playing it doesn't bode well for anybody else. But there were a few people there who really enjoyed what we were doing so if nothing else, I know we're playing the right songs very well. Hopefully there'll be a keyboard player pretty soon as well...

3/9/2011
A quick note about Open Mic UK: I was scheduled to audition, and if I pretend that the reason I didn't was for anything other than I didn't get up early enough I'd just be kidding myself. But, given that I had a slot booked at Codfest for 3.20pm, I'd parked my car at completely the wrong end of the NEC and I didn't really owe those guys anything (quite the other way round in fact, given that I had to pay to enter,) I ended up walking out.

So, Codfest. Easily the best of the summer festivals I played for all these two weeks. Sam and his friends had really done a good job getting it all sorted out, and the festival was the most enjoyable day I'd had for a long long time. My set was good; no one is going to go mental for an acoustic set but it was easily the largest number of people I'd ever played to in one gig, and the amount of them who came up to me afterwards and said they'd really enjoyed it was astounding; something I'm really not used to on that scale! I also did a couple of slots at the 'Busk Stop,' singing Disney songs of all things and getting other people up to sing with me, which was a very nice feeling indeed. At the end of the day it had all been one massive party; all the artists were good, everyone knew each other and got on reasonably well so there was no trouble, it was a whole music scene inside one field and one very large group of people that appreciated it. Long may it continue, and well done to everybody involved.

4/9/2011
This gig I was supporting Gwyn Ashton at The Foundry in Dudley. Nice to do a home-town show at last! For me at least there was a feeling of What Goes Around Comes Around, as Gwyn had jammed on bass with Jack's Legacy years ago at The Broadway while they were waiting for me to turn up, and five years later I'm supporting him. I'm also seeing a lot of Emma in In Between Seas, which is hardly surprising as we know the same promoters. It was a good gig all in all, I was probably the least technically able of all the guitarists who played that night but none of them deliver their songs with quite as much venom as I do with Bitterness, once I'd played that the gig was mine for the 20 minutes or so I had left. Only drawback really was the fact that I'd shouted myself hoarse at Codfest the previous day, and it came across in my singing. Oh, and by the way, if you get a chance to go and see Gwyn Ashton play, for God's sake do it. He is incredible.

5/9/2011
I wrapped it up with a trip to Katies with the intention of doing Wide Open Space with Dale. He wasn't there, but it's surprising how much of the Katies crowd I have a friendly familiarity with now. All things considered singing Man That You Fear by Marilyn Manson wasn't one of my better moves as it really hurt my throat, but I also gave them Bitterness and We Will Survive, and the guys I spoke to afterwards reckon it sounded pretty good.

So there you have it. Busy busy, but let's be honest, this is what I wanted all along, being able to gig every night. It'll probably slow down a bit now the summer is behind us, but hey, I'll keep doing gigs every week, and there's talk of a recording coming up soon as well so we'll see how that goes, it's about time I got a CD out!

24/8/2011: The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham

So for the second time this month, I find myself playing a new venue. I’d been to the Sunflower Lounge before to watch Pan and the Poets, and I was aware of the fact that the venue does take itself seriously, but even without this, the stakes are always higher if it’s a new gig. I was therefore wondering for a long time what to play; whether to play my faster songs which would fit about half of the audience, or my arty ones that would fit the venue. In the end I just decided to play whatever the hell I felt like, and fell back on almost exactly the same set list I played in Cradley Heath last week. If it ain’t broke…

Kicking of with Bitterness was probably the best decision I made all night. The guy who was on before me was quiet all the way through his set so suddenly bursting on to the stage with this one was probably just what the audience needed at that point. I did hear the sound guy having fun with the mixer – my pickup has never been the favourite of sound engineers, and for what it’s worth the sound was great for the rest of the night – but apart from that it all went very well. I got the roar at the end of the song exactly right, and it’s nice to be in an environment where I might get away with it.

Followed that up with Get Out Of My Head. I was conscious of the fact that Sam Tilley, who had gone on first, was a fan of Maroon 5, who inspired most of the music for this song. He didn’t say anything but it appeared to go down well; a lot of the guys in there were quite attentive and I can’t fault them for that.

For the first time for quite a while I’d actually managed to get some people to come to a gig, in this case Hannah and John who used to be in Perception with me,* and Mark who does That’s Sound recording. For my two former bandmates, neither of whom I’d seen for months, I played my rendition of Let’s Start A Band, a song we used to cover. I fluffed up a chord at one point but other than that it went OK and there was at least one other person in the crowd who knew what I was playing because I saw her singing along. A good one to remember! Thanks very much to the three of you for coming, I appreciate it.

I gave Chapter One another go next. My ‘Does anyone come from Perry Barr?’ spiel seemed to work, although that’s probably because I was prepared for the fact that actually probably none of them came from Perry Barr and scripted my response accordingly. I wouldn’t necessarily do it in, say, Northumberland, but around the Midlands it just might work. I played the song a lot better than I did last week, I did fluff up the words again but I was able to cover up my mistakes far more effectively so I’m pleased; I’d be happy to play it again live. I think maybe the song is a little too quiet for an environment where I have to plug my guitar in; tonight for example the sound on my guitar had to be right down for the heavier moments which means that when I was playing quietly the guitar would have been almost inaudible. But that won’t necessarily always be the case; I’m in the market for a new guitar after all!

I then followed it through by playing the same chords in to Storm From The North. One very careless blunder while I was playing this: It was going very well indeed. No sooner had this thought entered my head than the plectrum started to slip out of my hand. Thankfully I rescued it – but that could have been interesting! I had a feeling, this being a new gig, that I’d get clapped over the last quiet bit, but this time when it happened I just let the audience get on with it and came back in when they’d quietened down. That was far more effective than mentioning it during the song, though I did make a point of thanking them for applauding twice for one song once I’d finished.

I wrapped it up with We Will Survive, which I think is one way I can make absolutely sure that whatever else happens, I will go out with a bang. The thought entered my head as I was playing that it’s been a while since I last changed the strings on my guitar, and I can consider myself very lucky to still have all six at this point. I need to keep an eye on it because I’m very busy in the coming weeks.

So this one was certainly one of my better gigs in recent months. There were people there who were playing better than I did; doing all sorts of things with open tunings that I wouldn’t even try at this stage, and singing better as well. But that still didn’t stop a rather proud feeling of setting the bar quite high for the act that was to follow…

I’ve got a gig with the 82s at Pulse Festival in Four Ashes on Friday, so if you want to see what all the fuss is about I’d say that would be a pretty good place to do it.

*Perception never officially broke up, but it will be a long time, if ever, before we play together as a band again. It’s a shame, but I think we were reluctant to admit that we just weren’t moving in the same direction musically, and sort of necessarily let it die over the past few months.