Katy Fitzgeralds, 27/4/2011

Yet again I find myself with a backlog of blogs for the various bits and pieces that I've been doing. I have been a busy boy!

This one, I've got to be honest, didn't feel so good for me. This is unusual for Katies, usually I quite enjoy it, but either I wasn't feeling it, or my confidence was knocked by the people who were walking out while I was playing (I'm sure there were good reasons for it, in fact I spoke to two people afterwards who had perfectly good reasons I'd have to be a cruel man indeed to begrudge them,) or maybe even with the various bank holidays this week people's minds aren't in the right place at the moment. Whatever the reason, tonight wasn't my night.

As it was less than 2 weeks since I last played Katies, I decided to turn my set list on it's head. Not one of my best-timed decisions, if I'm honest; most of the people in the room had never seen me before so it was only Sam and Stefan who would have noticed. Why deviate from what I know works? But I did, and started off with Get Out Of My Head. I managed to intrigue the audience by playing the first verse and chorus without any chords and a backbeat played by banging on my guitar, and I played the rest of the song well enough to polite applause.

I've not written a set list for an acoustic gig for a while now, I tend to only do it if I'm in a band and need everybody else to know what's going on! Acoustic gigs, I generally pick four or five songs I definitely want to play and fill in the gaps with whatever I can think of at the time. I placed We Will Survive next, and I think that was probably not the right time for this song, given I start it with an a'capello chorus - which I'd basically just done with Get Out Of My Head. The idea would have got old after two songs, so it probably didn't do so much damage as I'm suggesting here, but it's one to keep in mind for the future not to put those two songs together.

Girl's Names was next. Apart from the fact that I'm playing the transition to 12/8 a lot more smoothly now than I have been, this song was faily unremarkable. It usually goes down well and for that reason I play it every time I play Katies - but, perhaps as a result, I didn't notice much of a reaction tonight.

I announced a new song and started playing Amy's Song. For those of you who listen to Switchfoot, this is a very different song that I wrote about my girlfriend. This was the first time I'd ever played it live and it's a dramatic change from my usual melancholic style; whether it's a particularly good idea to do it in a set this short is debatable at this point. It's going to take a few more goes before I figure it out. However I noted that it was this point that a significant number of people were walking out, which didn't do much to raise my confidence in playing the song live...

I think at all my gigs I'll always do either Believe or Prisoner of my Mind, and tonight I elected to do Prisoner. I didn't get much of a reaction out of this either, but then again by now there weren't all that many people left to react! Not a good sign for what was once (OK, 3 years ago) considered my best song.

I had at least remembered to put a couple of heavyweights at the end, and even though it was a little too late to pull it back by then there is such a thing as going down fighting. Few of my songs are better for that than Bitterness! Still, I think I'll have to stick with opening with this one. If I'm going to inject the correct amount of bile into the chorus I either need to use it to get the adrenaline going and surprising the audience, or the entire gig has to have gone well, neither of which were the case tonight. But other than that I played it OK.

I ended with Storm from the North, which I think was the first time in a while I made it all the way through the song without forgetting any of the words, kudos to me for that! I think this one will end the greater majority of the shows now, but it's like driving up a hill when it's snowing - I need to have a certain amount of momentum when I hit it, otherwise I'll get stuck half way up. I think that's a reasonable metaphor for, OK it's a good song, but if the gig hasn't been good then it's not going to change anybody's minds.

I doubt that those few people who did watch me all the way though would tell me that it was as bad as all that, and I have been quite harsh on myself this time. But that isn't the sort of gig that I want to make a habit of doing. I've got the Wharf Bar again tonight, and the fact that audiences there generally are quite unresponsive makes that gig very hard work, I don't need to be making it any harder for myself! The mistake was, I think, switching the set around. Bitterness and Get Out Of My Head are the attention grabbers, We Will Survive and Storm from the North are the set-closing epics, everything else is filler though there are some that are good enough to play them at most shows. Let's see what happens tonight...

Katy Fitzgeralds 30/3/2011

I got emergency-booked to play Katies again the other night, which is really good because I managed to get on the bill to play Katyfest in May, I'll keep you posted on that!

A big night for me, this one, because I wanted to play Storm from the North live for the first time. I'd been putting it off for a while because I hadn't really rehearsed it well enough. This is also the first one for a while where I've felt my set was consistent enough to make it all my own material rather than throw in a cover. Was it worth the wait? Read on...

I kicked off as ever with my usual combo of Bitterness and Get Out Of My Head. I can um and ar as much as I like about putting most of my heavyweights in at the start of the set but I've got a precedent of three months worth of gigs to suggest to me that this works very well indeed; tonight was no exception. Bitterness contains the usual element of surprise about the acoustic guy playing rock songs, and I think Get Out Of My Head is finally reaching a place where I can play it confidently enough to compensate for it's unfamiliarity and vase switch in styles.

Believe was next; of my two desolate wrist-slashers this is the "Early 00's Goth"-type, why I keep choosing this over the other one (Prisoner of my Mind, the mid-90's shoegazer) I don't know because I actually think Prisoner's the more effective song, but I've pretty much stopped writing set lists these days and make it up as I go along; I know what's supposed to happen at the start of each gig and I can go with the flow from there. This was followed by Dear Mr Manager; not sure how well this one went down because with such a small audience it's difficult to guauge, but this is one of my less enjoyable (if more interesting!) songs, and I think it's no coincidence the applause I was getting from this very modest crowd was noticably quieter. Then again, I could also put it down to the significant reduction in pace, speaking of which...

After advising Sam that I'm 'going loud again,' I played Storm from the North for the first time. Any new song I'll mess up the first couple of times I play it, thankfully in this case it was a matter of a couple of lyrics I was able to bluff. The changin time singatures and the lyrics about 17th century pirate ships (analogy of Crashpoint, as I've explained before) arguably makes this song about as pretentious as I get, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing it and the audience seemed to like it too!

After this I played my two set closers, Girls Names, which never fails to go down well at Katies, and We Will Survive. I happened to mention to the people in the crowd (the number of wich had grown a bit by then) that I'm patiently waiting for the time when people will sing the chorus back to me after I hit the first chord (if you haven't heard it, I start the song with an a'cappello rendition of the first couple of lines of the chorus,) after which Sam affirmed that she and Stefan always do. This being one of my more pacey songs, it's rare that I don't end the show with it, and when I do I can usually leave the stage in a good mood. This was one of those times!

I really enjoyed playing the show tonight, and I think it went really well; the environment is I think more suitable for what I play with my acoustic guitar than at the Wharf Bar (the other place where I do full gigs.) I also played Sam's Open Night at the Woodman the following day, more on that to come later...

Katy Fitzgeralds Acoustic Brew, 19/1/2011

First of all, whatever else I say in this blog, make sure we know this: It was a really good night. Nice atmosphere, just the right artists to make it work, a friendly crowd, couldn't ask for better.

OK well my first step tonight was to take a picture of the pub before I went in. Why? Well, as you might have gathered from the blog, I play Katies quite a bit and I thought it might be a good idea to have a picture of the place that I can attach to the invites I send out on Myspace and Facebook. Superficial, and I doubt it will make a significant amount of difference to the turnout, which tonight was quite good, but it might go some way to making it look a little more like I mean it. So that should be up for the next time I get a gig there...

I went into this gig quite relaxed, and because it seems to be working I started out by playing Bitterness. Most of the regulars/bar staff know this song now, and Jen was kind enough to tell me she knew the words to it as well. I find it a good one to get the adrenaline going, and this time was no exception; I certainly sounded like I meant it and that was reflected in the warm reception I got for playing it.

Second, I played Get Out Of My Head. Despite what I said in my previous blog, this one went down very well. It's more familiar in this setting than anywhere else, which was probably why, but somehow I felt my delivery of the song had improved as well. Can't fault this one.

Then, after announcing that this was the first time I'd played to a dog, (and that's not a euphamism for anything, there was literally a guy in the pub who had a dog,) I played Prisoner of my Mind, which I hadn't played for a while but somehow managed to play it note perfectly. Not sure how well it went down; it's not a happy song and unless you're in to your shoegazing indie circa mid/late 90's, the effect would probably be lost on you. However, I did notice a couple of people who hadn't seen me before clapping in the 'gaps' where I stop playing and then start again, which suggests to me that they're paying attention which is never a bad thing.

After the gig at the Wharf last week I found myself thinking that I really shouldn't be putting Believe and Girl's Names next to each other since they use the same chord progression in the chorus, so I decided at this point to play Believe. It was here that I noticed a certain divide in the audience; it was a comedown from my more energetic songs at the start of the set and those people who I'd ensared were watching, listening, and paying attention. Those who were only casually listening were drifting off at this point. I also marked the distinct improvement in my fingerpicking, and being able to switch from that to plectrum has as much to do with the fact that I teach guitar as anything else.

Next... oh dear, this wasn't one of my better moves. As you may know, I've had some new songs, which I've not played live yet because I haven't really had time to rehearse them. However, during a call of nature I found myself reciting the lyrics to a new song, Dear Mr Manager, which thinking about it I haven't blogged yet and I really should, and deciding that as I could remember them all I might just give it a go tonight. Unfortunately, being on stage high as a kite on adrenaline reduces my brain capacity by about 50%, so I forgot most of the second half of the song and made the words up. It didn't go very well. I had to stop completely at one point. I shouldn't really kick myself too hard about this because the rest of the gig went well, but I ought to know better than this. That being said, Dale seemed to like the guitar playing in it, which is quite different from my usual style so it would have been a refreshing change.

So as you can imagine, I had to make the next one count to recover from that. Fortunately that's not hard to do at Katies, I gave them Girl's Names and this one seems to go down very well these days. I must admit it's one of my more catchy choruses; Amy text me today telling me she'd had it going around in her head all afternoon which is one of the nicer things said about my songs! I also noticed people singing along to it as well, which to me proves the point that whatever I think of the song, people like it. A firm part of my set list, should I ever decide to write one!

I ended with We Will Survive, after announcing that it was inspired by Battle Royale. I don't get much of a reaction when I say that, so I'm not sure if anyone gets it, and in a future blog I might explain why as well. For now, it's enough to say that I played it very well last night and went off to pretty much the biggest cheer I've ever got at Katies. It looks like I'm starting to put my set in the right order!

It was a good night, but I couldn't have done it without help, well done to Chris Jones and Jen Robins for some very solid performances; Jen in particular had the whole pub hanging on her every word. And it was nice to catch up with who I hope is Spence from Satsumo, who I'd had the pleasure of jamming with a few years ago at The Broadway in the Jack's Legacy glory days. Funnily enough, he described my set as 'Irish music, without the accent,' and mentioned The Levellers, as well. I'd not thought about either of those things when I wrote any of those songs, and I've never even heard any music by The Levellers, but I guess growing up around, amongst other things, Irish music, that might come across in my songwriting. If it does, it's certainly an ingrained part!

Overall, very pleased with the way tonight went. It's not looking too bad for me at all!