Time for a quick summary of upcoming gigs…and a note to self about getting some sort of calendar sorted out for this website. Noted.

• 5th August: Billy No Mates at The Old Angel Inn, Nottingham supporting SNFU - More info
• 15th August: Billy No Mates at the Kanalrock Festival in Oslo, Norway- More info
• 22nd August: Acoustic gig at the Cally Fest, Caledonian Road, London- More info
• 27th August: Special gig playing some punk covers (+ probably a few Sink songs) at The Portland Arms, Cambridge. N.B. I know we’re billed as ‘acoustic opener TBC’ on the venue’s website, but we’ve agreed with promoter, DS, that we can do a 30 minute band set instead. The plan at the moment is that I’ll be on guitar with Rich Matthews (from K-Line) on bass and his mate, Tom, on drums - More info

Also in the pipeline, but currently unconfirmed, are acoustic gigs at the Fighting Cocks in Kingston and a venue in Sittingbourne, Kent; both supporting Duncan Redmonds. Moreinfo on those gigs as I get it.

Sorry that the aforementioned review of the Ipswich gig didn’t materialize before now. It turns out that no-one had any audio or video of our set, so I ended up not bothering with a post until now. Needless to say though it was an absolute thrill being on stage with Reado and Sarah again for the first time in ten years (the last time was the Big Ray tour of France in 1999). Reado sat at the back with a snare & some brushes and tapped along with pretty much the whole set (even the songs he didn’t know!) . The patented Reado BVs were also very much in evidence which was a huge bonus as that boy can sing like nobody’s business. Sarah came up for the last 4 songs and it was like she’d never been away.

Rich Matthews who played guitar with me in the mighty K-Line & more recently in the ill-fated, You Disgust Me, temporarily switched to bass for the first time ever and did a great job. John Ruscoe was on lead guitar duties and was amazing as always. Unfortunately for me, he’s getting increasingly busy with his other music commitments & it looks like he’ll not be playing any of these gigs for the foreseeable future. Bah!

The whole evening in general was great; the other acts were fantastic & we had a ton of punters in through the door. Thanks to Dave Hamer for organising the evening and being sound man & all-round go-to guy on the evening. Finally, extra special thanks to me for doing the door all night because no other sod fancied it. I won’t make that mistake again!!

Gig was great. Full report & more photos in a few days. Here are a few that Jacqui took with our dodgy digital camera and a slightly drunken hand Click on them if you want to see a bigger version on Flickr.

If anyone’s interested I’m planning to stream some video from tonight’s gig in Ipswich onto my page at qik.com. What this means is if you’re online at the right time you can go to http://www.qik.com/edwenn and see events unfold more or less as they happen (usually about 40 seconds behind). Whoo! Big deal….or maybe not, but I think it’s pretty cool that this type of thing is even possible with just a mobile phone, a website and a 3G connection. If you’re not online at the right time you can watch archives of the footage at the same address. I won’t be running it constantly, but will try and stream at least one song from every act & I’ll probably tool around ‘interviewing’ friends etc. during the breaks. Things that could go wrong: phone battery dies, no 3G or wireless connection at the venue, I might get too stressed/busy and forget all about it.

For those of you who are interested in trying to catch some of the show live, the approximate running times are as follows (all are GMT):

• Li’l Lost Lou 8.30 - 8.45
• Clive & Chums 8.50 - 9.20
• 2 Peas From The Pod  9.30 - 10.00
• Ed & John 10.10 - 10.50
• Duncanfromsnuff 11.00 - 11.30

N.B. You’ll need the Adobe Flash v10 plugin for your browser. Try the link above and you’ll be prompted to upgrade (don’t worry, it’s free and harmless) if your version is too old.

Friday 22nd May, Ipswich:

Couple of last minute additons to the bill.

My old friend (and one of the very earliest Sink fans from back in the day), Li’l Lost Lou, got in touch last week to say she’s often in Ippo these days and will be in town on Friday 22nd. She was coming along to the gig anyway, but would love to grab a guitar and play a couple of numbers. Was there room on the bill? Erm, not really, but why should that stop us? So she’ll probably be kicking things off with a couple of tunes.  At around the same time it became clear that Duncan thought Steve and Rob from Vanilla Pod were doing a set under their alter egos, 2 Peas From The Pod. At that point they weren’t on the bill, but Steve and I had a chat and it turned out they were free that night so they’re going to be playing a short set too. Nice!

 This leaves the line-up for the night as follows:

• 1st on: Li’l Lost Lou
• 2nd on: Clive Watling & friends
• 3rd on: Ed & John Ruscoe with Reado (Big Ray) & Rich Matthews (K-Line)
• 4th on: Duncan Redmonds

Thursday 6th August, Cambridge

The inevitable return to the wonderful Portland Arms in Cambridge looks like it’ll be in early August supporting the equally wonderful Kevin Seconds. DS is putting the gig on and has asked if I can do it. I’ve said yes. It’s a long way off so things may change and I need to see whether any of John/Rich/Reado is available to play with me or whether this one’s a solo gig. More info nearer the time.

I assume Kevin’s doing more UK gigs around this time though so if you don’t live near Cambridge check out his tour dates & try and see him at some point.