Matt and Ellie Don't Stop Believing at the Hare and Hounds, Lye 4/5/2013

One question that I don't get asked very often at all, but I wish I did, is: Do you miss being in a band?

To clarify the position, it's been nearly a year and a half since I've gigged with a band on anything like a regular basis, and that was a joint effort between Natasha and the 82s and Aki Maera that meant I was doing roughly one gig a month. Contrast this with, say, this time four years ago when I was very busy with Crashpoint to the degree of a couple of gigs a month at least, and before that with Jack's Legacy where we'd try at least one a month to keep the momentum going, and you can see why it's easy enough to forget that I am, actually, still with The Fakes - which averages out about one gig a year in this day and age.

Either way, the answer is: I do and I don't.

What I miss most about being in bands is this: it's basically all I've ever wanted to do with my life. I know that, at 27, I should have left the 'Rock Star' dream behind a long time ago, and I'm aware of others thinking the same about me even if they don't say it. And even though the day I give up on it completely will be a very sad day for me indeed, when I consider what I'm doing with myself these days - guitar teaching, war gaming, role playing, my girlfriend - even I have to admit that it might be a little too late. So, the only thing I've ever really wanted to do with my life is out of my reach, probably forever. Which isn't to say I don't enjoy doing what I'm doing now. It's just that teaching guitar to kids in schools is about as good for me as it is ever going to get. Not what I wanted to be saying at 27. So I do miss being in bands because that was what kept that dream alive.

However, a lot happened during the last week to remind me of some of the things I don't miss about being in a band. Last Sunday (28/4) an old friend Ellie Hawthorne put out a call on Facebook asking if anyone would play guitar for her on Saturday night, which I answered. Over the course of the next few days, the following happened:

• Ellie sent me a list of songs she wanted to play. There were 11 songs on this list. I knew one of them. Of the others, two of them were by Paramore - and I used to be quite vocal about my intense dislike of that band, if I am a little more cryptic about the reasons for it. It's personal. But I was not going to spoil it for her by refusing to play them. It's certainly not the first time I've sold out!
• No problem, I thought. If I learn roughly 3 per day and we can get together for a rehearsal then it should be OK. I had learned all of them except one by Wednesday evening when Ellie messaged me again saying it was off because she had to work. (At least, I think that's what she said, but she left out the word 'work' from the message, which thinking about it could potentially have been any verb conducive to the general effect of not being able to do the gig.)
• Thursday night she messaged me again telling me it was back on and could I do it? Well, I'd lost two days practice by then, since I was busy that evening, but there should be no reason I couldn't give it a go. So I said yes, and we'd have to arrange a time for a rehearsal possibly the following afternoon? Ellie couldn't make it because she was working. Fair enough; I've not forgotten what it was like to have shifts on appallingly unsociable hours. We'd just have to wing it on the day.
• 10 minutes later - count them, 10 - my Mom told me that my brother was coming home for the weekend and we were all supposed to be going out for a meal on Saturday night. Sometimes the word 'bollocks' just doesn't cover it. They did at least say that I could do the gig and I didn't have to worry about the meal, but it wasn't a decision I wanted to have to make.
• Finally learning the songs on Friday Night, I went to the gig and found that when Ellie said we were on at 6pm - and this is perhaps the strangest part of all - we were actually on at 6. The result was that I had finished by 6.45, and even though I'm not in the habit of disappearing straight after a gig, I did that day and managed to go for dinner with my family after all.

It took me straight back to being in bands. I remember being stressed out of my mind having to play gigs we weren't even close to being ready for, having to re-arrange shifts at work in order to be able to do it, and deal with fucking arsehole band-mates who would duck out of it at a moments notice leaving me to either re-arrange it or manage without them. You know who you are. And somehow that responsibility almost always fell on me, especially with Crashpoint and Jack's Legacy. I don't miss that at all.

Now so far this post will have come across to many of you as cynical and negative, so let me make one thing absolutely crystal clear: I have no bad feeling towards Ellie at all for what happened in the week. I am delighted she gave me a chance to play live again, and I really did enjoy the gig when we were doing it, more on that later. In fact, I think the fact that I fought tooth and nail to make it happen is indicative of a) how much I wanted to do it, and b) how much I've missed gigging and not realised. So, on the whole it is good to be back.

One of the things that made the gig for me was my new guitar; a Hofner Electro-Acoustic. I'd been saying for years I needed to retire the old Hondo, and now I can plug in a guitar and save all that tedious mucking about with that pickup. Both are there if I need them, but now I have an electro-acoustic that sounded better than I could have possibly imagined. (I had played it before but never plugged it in.) I think what was conducive do this was the fact that I left the pre-amp alone, and let the sound guys do their thing. Sometimes electro-acoustics don't sound all that good, either woolly or abrasive, but mine sounded OK and that was because I decided I'd leave all my EQ controls at a flat level (which is 5, by the way,) increase the volume of the guitar until sound was coming out of the PA and let the sound guy boost the treble and bass if they needed to, which I'm not sure they did. The result was a sound that as far as I could tell was as clear as it needed to be, without getting in the way of the vocals. I'm not saying I'll never mess with my EQ, but after all, the sound guys know what they're after, and I'm usually happy with a sound...

The set list was:

Journey: Don't Stop Believing
Ally and AJ: Someone To Fall Back On
Paramore: The Only Exception
Taylor Swift: Love Story
Adele: Someone Like You
Demi Lovato: Skyscraper
Miley Cyrus: The Climb
McFly: Love Is Easy
Jeff Buckley: Hallelujah
Paramore: Still into you

And then Ellie finished off with an a'capello version of Rolling In The Deep.

It took a couple of songs to pick up momentum, I think, not least because we started with the two I was least sure about, but considering we hadn't practiced any of them before, or even met in person for almost a year and a half, it went as well as I could have expected. There were mistakes, of course - sometimes I'd play the song incorrectly, sometimes Ellie would come in a little sooner than I was expecting - but we managed to pull it back together quickly and we at least ended all the songs together! I think - and I'm not sure, because I wasn't really concentrating on the reaction from the crowd - that The Climb went down the best. Nobody ever went wild for us, but I didn't expect them to. It was what it was - an event in the beer garden of a pub; the crowd only ever half-listens to you and I was prepared for that. I thoroughly enjoyed playing and I could get in to the role as the side-man again; with all the attention on someone else I can do what I want.

So, am I back now? Yeah, I guess so. There were things I wanted to do before this happened. I wanted to lose some weight, but I've been careless and not done it. I wanted to write some new songs but I've not come up with anything particularly memorable yet. But I will try and hit a few open mics in the coming weeks, and see what happens. I might even try one the week I'm in Swindon.

See you all again soon. And thanks for your patience.

Christmas Time in Coven: 18/12/2012

It's Christmas Time...

Hi there, it's been a long while! I wanted to talk to you today about a gig I did last week, again for mygood friend Sam Draisey. See, I've been involved again in the production of this year's Christmas Album, and what with Sam promoting it at his open mic at the Rainbow Inn in Coven and I wanted to go and support it myself, by playing my song and generally contributing to the night. As it was over 3 months since my last performance, I was coming at this one with a little trepidation. However, given my track record, this was probably to do with the fact that I hadn't practiced enough; something I avoided mentioning on the night simply because having to apologise for the way you're playing your songs - particularly your own - gets old and lame after the third or fourth time you've heard it. This is pretty much the only gig I've ever done where I've read the majority of my set from a music stand, a fact I'm not particularly proud of but I guess a lot of people do it. So here's what happened:

I opened up with Once In Royal David's City. This is a song I don't remember singing since I was in primary school, singing Christmas Carols off the same tatty carol sheets they used to hand out every year. My last Christmas there was 1996 so I doubt they survive now, and I don't usually go in churches or anything like that so I have no occasion to sing those songs any more. Which is a shame, 'cause I kind of miss doing it. I sang the first verse unaccompanied, and then brought in the guitar after; I had a capo on the 1st fret and played it in E flat so my voice was just about high enough to hit the top notes. The guitar could have done with a bit more rehearsal; the accompaniment for that song was originally done on piano or organ, and while translating it note for note onto guitar is all but impossible, I should at least have paid more attention to the unusual timing of the chord changes, but I managed without any monumental disasters so that was OK.

I then sang what I'm tentatively calling my classic: The First Footprint. This one will always be special to me because it proves a point that I've long tried to stick to while writing songs - write about what you know. This came from Adam Levine from Maroon 5, if you want to know. It was nice to sing it again and since a lot of the people there had heard it there was a nice sense of familiarity about it. It's something of a running joke that I can't seem to play it live without forgetting the words at some point, and tonight was no exception, although at least this time it happened between verses.

After that, I played my contribution to this year's Christmas Album, which funnily enough is called Next Year. I wrote it as a sort of sequel to All I Want For Christmas Is You, relating it to my current situation with Amy, where we're looking forward to moving in together but until then the distance between us pretty much forces us to spend Christmas apart. There was no small amount of Feeder in the melody and chord progressions, but you know what, they're my favourite band so that's inevitable. It went OK, Sam likes the song and I can see myself playing that in years to come which can be no bad thing.

I wrapped it up with another Christmas Carol Silent Night. This is one that's always been a staple Christmas song and there have been some appalling versions of it recorded in the past, so I really tried to capture the essence of what I feel the song is about. When I try to describe it, words escape me, but it is a beautiful song and I think I compensated for the fact that I find it hard to hit the high notes while singing quietly well.

So, not a bad night at all, I was very pleased with how it went.

Have I put a date on returning to gigging yet?

Well, I have and I haven't. To a certain extent it's going to depend on whether or not I'm still in the Midlands by the time I get back into it. If I'm not then I'll be far too busy trying to sort myself out to worry too much about gigging. But I'm looking at maybe April for what I'm pretentiously calling a 'Comeback.' That will mean I've had a year out and hopefully will have achieved what I wanted to achieve from taking it out in the first place.

Time will tell, but until then, see you all soon...

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...

Heading for the End Part #2: The Rose and Crown in Glory

So we finally reach the end of 2 years and 4 months of tireless gigging. Here's how it all went:

After warming up in the soundcheck to the first bit of All Star by Smash Mouth, I opened my set with Get Out Of My Head. I did the a'capella intro because I think opening a gig like that lends a certain amount of intrigue to proceedings, and given that I was following Neil Corbett, who just for the record is really, REALLY good, I thought I'd better look like I mean it. It did the job and I played it reasonably well; it has certainly served me well over the last year and a half!

Bitterness is of course the song that everybody remembers. I opened it by telling everybody that footage of me playing it now exists on Youtube, and hammered it out my my usual measure of bile and spite. Mitch said that's his favourite of my songs and he loves to hear me play it; I must admit it's probably one of the most enjoyable songs I play live, made all the more so by the small number of times I choose not to.

I then for only the second time brought on a guest, Mitch Jones to sing Hurt by Nine Inch Nails/Johnny Cash. Should probably have told Mitch which version we were singing because he sang the NIN lyric - you know the bit I mean. But it was a good song, fit my mood perfectly and it was a pleasure to sing with him. We might do it again in the future, who knows?

Then I did something I've been meaning to do for a while and sing A Lonely Night while throwing in the chorus to Dani California by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I did open it by dedicating it to RHCP 'for stealing my fucking song,' but in case and Chili Peppers people are reading this or saw it, I WAS ONLY JOKING. I want that on record, as I don't want a lawsuit for defamation! It would have worked well if I remembered the words to it, unfortunately I tripped up on one of the lines so it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. The rest of the song went OK though.

I finished off with one of my 'It's all over' songs, Home for Summer by Feeder. This one takes me right back to calling time on Jack's Legacy; it's fitting I think to end my last gig with this one. It worked perfectly.

Well I got some very positive feedback from some people who hadn't seen me before so thanks for that guys; I think as last gigs go, I could have done far worse than this. Thanks to Cal and Joy from Screaming Harlot for putting me on, and to everybody who watched my set.

Now with any rules, there are exceptions. I'm not doing solo gigs any more. I may, however, do some or all of the following:

• Gigs with The Fakes, or any other band I join,
• Back-up musician for a singer, e.g. Hannah,
• Compere gigs for the St John's Church group (which I haven't been blogging because I'm not actually performing, just compereing)

So I doubt you've seen the last of me. And I might be back playing gigs at some point. But for now, I need to take a long, hard look at myself and see what I want to be doing with this.

Because what I don't want to do is come back and do exactly the same thing I was doing when I left...

Goodbye for now!

Heading for the End part 1: A Stormy Misdirection at the Hartley Arms. 23/4/2012

Hi there.

Not done a blog in a while; I'm afraid being obliged to write down the details of every single show I do can feel a little overwhelming at times, and I don't always get time to do it. I did a gig at Four Ashes a couple of weeks ago for example, and headed down to Amy's straight after. While it would not be literally true that I didn't have time to write a blog while I was there, she certainly wouldn't have thanked me for it. Which is a shame because that show influenced a lot of what it coming here:

I'm going to be taking an indefinite break from playing live. I can think of a few reasons for it but they basically come down to the fact that I've had enough. I gigged every week all of last year, and I've not done much less than that this year so far. Some shows I've enjoyed more than others, and what I've got out of it is refining my set to the point where I can put on a far more convincing show than I ever could before.

What else does that get me? Not a fat lot. I have very rarely been paid for playing a solo gig, (thanks to Sam Draisey for being the only one who has so far,) I couldn't sell a CD to my own mother (she's heard it all!) and usually the only way I can get anybody to come to a gig is if I drive them there myself.

Now I know that perhaps I should be doing more to change that. Burning off some CDs would be a nice start; getting a proper Facebook page, really promoting those gigs, get a decent contract on my phone so I can actually afford to send mass texts to people who might want to come. But the way it's been going so far hasn't put me in particularly high spirits and offering much incentive for me to do that. Plus I've been doing a lot of other stuff as well; I'm more in to my games now than ever before and it's taking up a lot of my time, and in many cases proving a lot more enjoyable. I think I need a few months off, give me some time to miss gigging and actually want to get back to it, during which I need the following things to happen:

• Get a proper Facebook music page
• Get a Twitter account to use with the Music page,
• Get some CDs printed off properly with a cover and everything
• Sort my PRS stuff out - I'm nearly there, I just need my birth certificate
• Write some new songs. Seriously, I've been playing most of the regulars for nearly two years now, and apart from the new one that I wrote at the Robin 2 that I've completely forgotten the name of, my most recent one is A Lonely Night and that's about 8 months.
• Get some sort of mailing list system going when I'm doing gigs so I can actually keep in contact with the people I talk to. Fair enough by now that would be some 20 people but it's 20 people I don't have now.

Now in true Matt style ducking out for a few months is out of bitterness, spite and disillusionment with music and its current state, and we'll find out if it's all worth it or whether I've been shooting myself in the foot when I come back to potentially find that all my old contacts and venues have moved on and I'll have to start all over again. Then again, that won't necessarily be a bad thing...

I'll pick this up another time, it's probably about now that I should talk about the gig I'm posting this blog for in the first place...

Ok given all this recent development I wasn't intending on being any good tonight, thankfully it was at  at the Hartley Arms and in the company of Sam and his friends with whom I enjoy a friendly familiarity to the point where I could get away with it. The first song I did was Fall Back Down by Rancid. I've know the song vaguely for a while, the chords are easy enough. I've only got a basic grasp of the words, but then listening to the record I'm not conviced Tim Armstrong knows it all that well either... Sam recognised it and everybody else seemed to enjoy it so there are worse songs to play!

I then played something I'd barely played before in my life and was a bit risque, Dark Heart Silhouette by Vendetta Red, who I'll happily tell anyone who'll listen that they are the best band you've never heard. That's probably the most offence I've ever caused in one song, with the lyric 'And I watched him take her, beat her and rape her, and he said if you tell anyone I'll have God kill your Mommy...' so I need to be careful where I'm playing that! It seemed to go down OK but no one really knows the band so I was playing it to enterain myself as much as anybody else.

Feeling that I should probably get some of my own material in there I decided to play Bitterness. It went down reasonably well athough I was at that point suffering from the coke and pizza I'd had earlier, and singing so hard I felt like I was going to be sick. I don't know what was worse, that or telling everybody about it afterwards.

I finished up with a false start - and subsequent retry - of Storm from the North. Once I'd got it, it was fine, though I shouldn't let that happen a great many times. Only last Friday I managed to get the giggles half way into it. I was conscious of the fact that Sam was filming this one and I wanted to give as good a performance as I can. If what Sam filmed comes out barely passable, I'll put it on the blog and see where it goes from there.

So I probably won't be at the Hartley Arms again too soon. I might go to the Robin when Sam puts it on but Wheaton Aston is a little far for me to go just to watch. Still, it's been good to me and has given me a nice platform to spring some new material from so I'm grateful for that!

Might see you Thursday, might see you Sunday...

New Songs or Old Classics? Gigs at the Rose and Crown and the Robin 2, March 2012

This is the first gig I've done for a while with the guys from Screaming Harlot - formerly Prickly Promotions - and I wanted to make it count. It was an unfamiliar audience to a degree, though Sam and Elliot were there making it a Travelling Fools gig as much as anything else, and it was a pretty relaxed atmosphere to be honest.

I've noticed a worrying precedent - unless I write my set list down straight away, I pretty much forget what I've played of a night. I remember they were all originals, I deliberately chose not to put any covers in this time. I remember forgetting the words to Get Out Of My Head, and then remembering them just in time. I remember playing A Lonely Night, and the whole thing held together quite well, but other than that not one of my more memorable shows.

I also did Sam's Open Mic at the Robin 2 the following Tuesday. I do remember what I played here, though this had more to do with the fact that it was almost completely different from usual. The set was:

Right Where It Belongs (Nine Inch Nails)
Prisoner of my Mind
The Edge Of My Universe
Bitterness

Now I know what you're thinking - What's The Edge Of My Universe? That's a new one... yes, you're quite right, that's my latest song. In fact I wrote it when I got to the Robin 2; I disappeared into the 'Noddy's Bar' bit at the back and wrote it there. I had to read of the words and I'll need to work on the delivery of those lines a little bit, but other than that it worked quite well!

I also got told by someone who saw me play there the last time that my 'wit' that I have on stage is really good and I should keep on doing it. That's nice to know, it's actually quite difficult to guauge if people find me funny or not!

So, my gigs are more memorable if I put new songs in there? Well, we know what to do...

A run of gigs in Feb/March

Once again I've done it where I've done loads of gigs and haven't blogged them. And since I've forgotten almost everything that's happened since the first one, I'll write them up as one entry...

23/2/2012: The Quality Hotel

This was a charity gig for the St John's Church Preservation Group. Here, I played some of my songs and a couple of covers for good measure. I think the set list was probably Get Out Of My Head, A Little Respect, We Will Survive for the first set and Storm From The North, Do The Strand and Bitterness for the second. Not sure what the audience made of my spiteful aggression, if I'm honest! I do remember messing up rather badly in Do The Strand, forgetting the words is something I really shouldn't be doing and indicative of the fact that I hadn't really practiced enough. A Little Respect was probably the best song in terms of audience reception. Given that it was a family event and I had to keep the language to a minimum, it blunted Bitterness's usual fury, and I didn't even try to play A Lonely Night. I compered for some of the night as well and it went quite well. It was a nice night, and I was very pleased to have been a part of it, but I can play better than that...

27/2/2012: The Hartley Arms

It was a very quiet night again at the Hartley Arms; just me, Sam and this other fellow called Sam to play the entire night. I did a longer set therefore than I would usually do, although I can't quite remember what I played. I was tired that night! I played Believe at some point I know I did Into The West for the first time there, and it seemed to go down quite well although for how loud the rest of my set is, it's quite hard to know where to put it!

7/3/2012: Katy Fitzgeralds

This was another emergency booking from Sam, with what turned out to be a disappointingly small audience. Fair enough I was on first, but there were 5 people in the room when I started playing, and by the time I'd finished there were two people left. And that was the next act and his Dad. Conseqently my energy suffered; there's no point coming out all guns blazing when there's nothing to shoot at. I think this is the first time for a long time that I've done a full gig at Katies and not played Bitterness; instead of that I played a softer version of We Will Survive which, for Alex Young and his Dad, is a privilage because that's probably the only time I will ever play it.

8/3/2012: Newhampton Arts Centre

This was a new venture for me, brought on by George who runs some open mics with Dan Skillern. Georges plan for this open mic is potentially quite huge so I had a feeling that the stakes were slightly higher than usual tonight; I thought I'd better make it a good one.

Kicking off as usual with Get Out Of My Head, I opened my set with a steady performance, if a little predictable. New venue it may have been, but most of the people there were at the Four Ashes a few weeks before or had seen me before anyway, so it wasn't exactly a surprise to hear me play this song first. If it was, I didn't feel it. The novelty, then, was hearing me fluff up one of the chords. We're off to a good start...

I had a feeling my set was going to be shorter than it was so I played Storm From The North next, telling the 'Crashpoint' story as I went in to it. I'm not sure I need to do that anymore as the song seems to have taken a life of its own, and I think I played it quite well, though I did decide to experiment by leaving the gaps between the separate sections of the songs just a little bit too long.

The song I really wanted to get out there tonight was A Lonely Night; George is talking about doing some recording in the future and this is the one regular song in my set that I haven't yet recorded, so I wanted him to hear it to find out what it was like. I'm not sure what he thought of all the swearing but I played the song steadily enough. I need to calm down when I'm kicking it off though; I come on a little strong on the opening chords which doesn't do wonders for the dynamic of the song.

I did the fast version of We Will Survive, after making the Battle Royale reference (incidentally, I'm reading the book at the moment; it's good stuff!) I think picking up the pace a bit helped, but usually by now at an open mic I'd be thinking about wrapping it up and I think the audience was of the same mind; some of them wanted their turn, some of them were fed up. It was probably good then, that I played one of my faster songs to try and kick it up the derrier!

And then for some reason I turned around and played Into The West again, offering 10 points the first person to tell me what film it was from. Nobody got it, although Dan told me afterwards he thought it was Lord of the Rings and couldn't quite remember where he'd heard it before. Then again I don't sound much like Annie Lennox! I think building up the pace in the previous song and dropping it straight back down again with this song wasn't one of my better ideas, but I'll know not to do it again and pick a more opportune moment to put that song in my set in future.

I wanted to go out with a bang so I ended with Bitterness, and you really got a feel for the sound in the room when the 'Bang Bang Bang' bit was carrying across the hall! The song will surprise no one who's heard me before but they seemed to like it, and I could have picked worse songs to end the gig with.

It probably sounds, from the way I've been writing, that I was none too pleased with how this all went down. It's true that I've been feeling a little flat on the gigging front, perhaps I'm running out of steam, I don't know. I know I've done better than this in the past, and after that run of good gigs at the start of the year it seems like it's all going a bit downhill now. Still, not to worry, I keep on doing it and hopefully something will come of it, and now that I'm aware of this maybe I'll be able to pick up a bit more pace for my next few gigs.