Last night found me back in one of my favourite places in London Town, The King & Queen, there for my monthly dose of ROCK ACTION i.e. Totally Acoustic. It was a GORGEOUS evening as I strolled round, light and sunny with all the pubs thronged on the outside with happy drinkers and so delightfully cool and half-empty within.
Ms H McCookerybook, one of the night's acts and all-round LEGEND, arrived not long after me, and we had the traditional chat of People Who've Been Doing This A While i.e. "Daft gigs I have done". Mr J Rosies, other act, arrived soon after, and I was amazed to find out that he used to live in The Olympic Village like what I do (but don't like to go on about). WEIRDLY the original THIRD act of the evening, Mr RG Saull (who'd ended up not being able to make it) used to live two floors up from me, ALSO in The Olympic village (which I rarely mention). What are the chances eh? What are the chances?
Our audience gradually arrived, and I was DELIGHTED to find that, for the first time ever, it was nearly ALL made up of REGULARS. This made it a bit strange for me doing the introduction, as almost everybody in the room had been before so knew full well what was going to happen, but otherwise it made it feel like a spontaneous gathering of CHUMS!
It also meant that the songsheets weren't really required for the theme tune, as most people knew it already! Once that was all sorted out it was time for ME to get things going, and I did this with a couple of songs I've not played live for AGES. The other day we listened to Say It With Words at home and I'd remembered how much I used to like Stop Look and Listen because the lyrics (I used to think) were DEAD CLEVER in their construction, so I did THAT. It seemed to go all right - I looked on the gigs list for that song later and was AWESTRUCK to discover it's SEVENTEEN YEARS since I last did it live!! I'm sure I've done it a little bit more recently, at least during the Validators gigs at the turn of the century, but I've been recording setlists for a good DECADE so it's definitely been a while. My other song, Only A Robot was last played five years ago, during the many performances of Moon Horse. I'd listened to that in the past week or so too (I think I'd been singing it to myself, so had looked it up) and rather liked it, although it very much missed the KAZOO SOLO and background messing about that was usually supplied by Mr S Hewitt.
With that done it was on to our main acts, who were GRATE. Jack Rosies, like Matt Shephard from a couple of months ago, is one of those extremely personable young singer songwriters you get these days, with their songs and ability to sing and stage presence - it must be a new innovation, we didn't used to have them when I was starting out! He was lovely, with a GRATE line in between-song REMARKS and a bunch of tunes that I found myself singing to myself as I headed down to the bar afterwards.
The second half of the evening was a FAB set by Helen McCookerybook. I've gigged with her, I think, twice before - once in Sheffield and once in Brighton, YEARS ago and years apart and yet, as soon as she started, I recognised the songs. She has a similar sort of JAZZY playing style as Mr I Game, also from a couple of months ago, though my idea of "jazzy" is probably different from other people's! She was wonderful, the only downside being that it she was so ENTHRALLING and GRATE that she appeared to only be on for five minutes!
I'm listening to the recording as I type this, and have high hopes of it being a BRILL podcast - as ever it'll be over on the Totally Acoustic podcasts page, which has a WEALTH of amazing sets. If you've not listened lately, or indeed ever, pop over and have a go, I guarantee you will find some BLOODY BRILLIANT stuff there!
