On Wednesday evening I found myself crossing London to distant SOUTH London, heading to BALHAM and The Bedford where I was due to play my first gig in that vicinity for over a decade.
For LO! Hibbett and Christopher were due to perform at a Freedom of Expression show, a promotion by Mr T Eveleigh who I have done gigs for and with approx 1,000,000 times over the years. I bumped into Tim on the way in and then was astonished when he led me into the big MAIN room (i.e. not one of the smaller ones upstairs) which I'd not been in before but which was GORGEOUS. It was a bit like a theatre and a bit like a courtroom, with a wooden balcony all around the top and tables set out in The Cabaret Style - CLASSY, basically. It also had a PROPER Green Room down in the depths of the basement, created, I assume, because they have a LOT of comedy shows there and comedians seem to prefer to sit in small rooms on their own rather than go out into the actual PUB. They are weird.
Anyway, Chris and I did our soundcheck, which Rich the Soundman made sound ACE, and then went into the actual PUB where we met Jim, Tim, Mark and Neil i.e. a big bunch of Chris's PALS what had v kindly come to see us. After some chat I excused myself to go and see if I could find some TEA and, after being amazed at how much Balham has changed since the very first time I ever went there (on the day when the events of The Gay Train occurred), I was further DELIGHTED to find an ACTUAL CHIPPY. This portended of further good times to come!
Back at the venue things were just kicking off with Adrian Roye, who I'd seen previously at Tim's album launch, and who had (and HAS) a LOVELY singing voice. He was followed by Interiors who were dead good also, but kept REMINDING me of something. It was only when they mentioned that they'd been together for TWENTY YEARS that I realised that they not only had almost the same line-up as THE VALIDATORS but also the same looks on their faces of just being very happy to all be together!
Then it was our turn and, after the usual chat onstage with Tim, we did THIS:
It felt like a really really good set, possibly helped by the VENUE and the LIGHTS and the SOUND and the way it all felt like we were doing a Proper Thing. There was some discussion about Chris's new glasses, ACTUAL APPLAUSE for my Wooden Robin Solo (the first time I have EVER been applauded for a solo!) and, once again, way more laughs than I expected. You don't have to take my word for any of this though, as once again the gig is available to view HERE:
I must say I MOSTLY like this thing of being able to watch gigs on catch-up, the only slight issue for me is that it does rather spoil bits where my MEMORY says I was singing beautifully and the technology says differently, but otherwise it is rather handy!
Gig done I had a chat with Chris's friend Tim who had some THORTS and also NOTES about the performance which were HUGELY appreciated. "I am still processing it" he said, which is similar to what Guy Lloyd said last week during our interview. I also am still processing it - I spent DECADES working up my usual ACT but suddenly we're doing something DIFFERENT and I've not quite got my head around how it's meant to work, at least with what I'm doing. When I look out at, and also when I listen TO, the audience I'm aware that at the start they're often not quite sure what they're watching, so some of the laughter is a bit nervous. THUS it was great to be able to talk to somebody outside of us about this. Who knew that the creative process could be INTERESTING eh?
After that we said farewells to our visitors, and also to each other, and I went back in to sit with Mr W Pilkington and thoroughly enjoy Anna Tabbush Trio who sounded GORGEOUS. After that all that was left to do was to collect my gear, say some final cheerios and then head off into the night. What a lovely eveing it had been!
