Blog: The Dress Rehearsal

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It was a short but VERY SWEATY stroll across Bloomsbury for me last night, as I strode manfully from work to The Lamb carrying a heavy bag of STUFF, an EASEL, a bag of placards, a guitar AND a ukelele. When I arrived to find Steve and Pete in situ i was very MUCH in need of a pint. As luck would have it, there were plenty of these available at the bar!

We sat around chatting for a bit, with me getting more and more NERVOUS, as this would be the first time I'd done My Exciting Life In ROCK in full in front of a proper audience. If it all went horribly wrong I'd be a bit stuck! ALSO, among the many delightful people who turned up was Mr S Evers, the bloke who commisioned me to write a book a couple of years ago and who features RATHER HEAVILY in the first story. I was a bit worried that he might not take its telling in the way it was meant!

We got the room set up, I did a LOT of pacing around, and people gradually arrived until just after 7.45pm I was ready to get going, so after a quick bit of Housekeeping I went off "stage", Steve introduced me, and I came back on and did THIS:

(theme from) My Exciting Life in ROCK

I Did A Gig In New York

The Peterborough All-Saints' Wide Game Team (Group B)

Professional, Competetent, Rocking And Tight

Do The Indie Kid

Sod It, Let's Get Pissed

Hey Hey 16K

It Only Works Because You're Here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

Boom Shake The Room

Payday Is The Best Day

It all went REALLY REALLY WELL. I was EXTREMELY relieved! I don't think I did too many serious mess-ups, added some EXTRA GAGS, and got it all done in 61 minutes! HOORAH! I was worried that when faced with an Actual Audience I might go on a BIT and go over our time slot, but I think this was counter-balanced by me doing everything a bit QUICKER. Also quite a bit of time was saying "And there he/she IS!" and pointing at whoever I was telling the story about, which I don't plan to repeat when doing it in Edinburgh!

Everyone seemed to enjoy it, even those who were IN it (much to my relief), though we did run into an unexpected problem when there was an ENCORE as I didn't know what to do... EVENTUALLY I told the story of The Mobile Phone Song and did Payday Is The Best Day, though I should really properly learn up Mental Judo, which would be VERY fitting, should it ever happen again.

Once finished there was time for dishing out of BADGES and CDs and general CHAT which as usual became a bit of a mini-SESSION with MANY lovely people, some of whom I hadn't seen for YONKS. Rather brilliantly The Legs On My Easel and The Landlady had taken quite a bit of stuff HOME for me earlier on, so it was a rather less heavily encumbered (and slightly more TIDDLY) Hibbett who staggered home, full of JOY that it'd all gone off OK.

I hope it goes down as well when people who AREN'T in it come to watch!

posted 2/7/2008 by MJ Hibbett

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