Forgot to post anything here about the solo acoustic thing I did in Ladbroke Grove a couple of weeks ago, so i thought I’d do so now seeing as how I’ve got a few minutes. It was a very strange night, but in short, I had a ball, was quite happy with my performance and am now very keen to get some more of these set up. Hoping to do as many as I can with with the added genius of Herr Johnny Ruscoe obviously, but if he’s not able to make it then I’m very comfortable doing it solo too. The gig was 100% weird (bright lights, huge venue, small crowd 30 yards away, small children running around…you get the idea…or maybe you don’t), but despite everything I had a great time and was glad that the set went down well. It was all for a good cause and a lot of time and effort had gone into setting up the event, so it was great to be part of something worthwhile (albeit in my very peripheral capacity). I was hoping to get video and audio recordings of the songs like we did for the Cambridge one in April, but I was in such a rush leading up to actually playing that I didn’t have time to go out to the car and get the cameras etc…next time I’ll make sure I make more time.For the 1 or 2 Shred anoraks/completists out there, the 30 minute set (as far as I can remember it and not in this order) was:
Shimmy
Warhead
House At Wilson
Buzzing
Shivers
Missing A Train
…and maybe one more. Or maybe not.
Next up may be a gig in Ipswich with some of the old crew. I called Clive about it last week and I’m hoping we can do something fun at Dave Hamer’s new venue in the lead up to Christmas. More on that if it happens. Obviously I’m always open to offers of acoustic gig so get in touch if you want to put me/us on anytime.
John Ruscoe’s had to drop out of this one so I’m flying solo, but if you’re free it’ll still be worth coming along - it’s a free gig after all! It’s part of a 4 day shindig being put on to promote debate about free speech. Films, speakers etc. On the last night there are 4 acts doing an acoustic set. Details as follows:
Liberty & LifeSaturday 20th September 7.00pm
In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith. A season of events exploring the recent erosion of civil liberties in the UK, and what is being done to defend them. All events are free entry and there will be a bar every evening. On Saturday 20th there will be an evening of acoustic music by various artists to round off the weekend.
Westbourne Grove Church, Westbourne Grove [Corner of Ledbury Road], London, W11 2RW.
020 7034 0500
http://www.westbournegrovechurch.org
Tube stations: Notting Hill Gate, Central, Circle and District lines. Westbourne Park, Hammersmith and City Bus routes: 7, 21, 27, 28, 31, 70, 328
That very nice Ms Kirstie Green has uploaded to YouTube a few choice visuals from the recent acoustic show in Cambridge. Really good quality (much better than the preview images would lead you to believe), so well worth checking out. Here’s a tip for the trainspotters; every time I smile it’s because there’s either a tricky bit of singing or playing coming up. Click here if you want to go straight to YouTube and watch the videos there for any reason.
First up is the second half of Jigsaw Catch.
Next we have the 2nd verse and all of the lovely guitar solo of Missing A Train.
…and bringing up the rear is a minute or two of Missing A Train (again) this time from the soundcheck.
My first stage outing in about 3 years went off without a hitch at The Portland Arms in Cambridge last night. Great atmosphere, sold out venue, loads of friendly faces from Ippo, Narch, London and (natch!) Sandy, Beds. It was wonderful playing with John again after all this time and I think we pulled it off just fine despite a few hiccups here and there (see notes below). Can’t wait to do it again, so get in touch if you want us to play.
Photos and possibly some video footage of the event will be available from here in the near future, but for now here’s the whole set (mercifully minus most of my between-song-banter) recorded by Jacqui on a Sony DSC-T9 digital camera - how the world has changed. Photos by Kirstie Green.
Many thanks to Chris and Ashley for inviting us to play. Roll on the next one!
Anorak Notes: Most of the songs here are faithful to the original recordings, just without the other instruments, but two of them we messed about with a bit. Carousel is in a different key so that I could sing it higher, but this meant that John’s harmony vocal ended up being too high for him. To compensate he’s written a new guitar part and, boy is it wonderful. On Jigsaw Catch I wanted a different feel so we changed both the key and the tempo, so that it sounded more like Tim Buckley’s song, Buzzin’ Fly. On this one too, John has written a kick arse new guitar part that I could listen to all day. This is the one I was most looking forward to playing, but in the event it got screwed up because the acoustic guitar all but disappeared from the monitors for most of it and I spent the first verse struggling to find the right key to sing in.
