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!

 

 Missing A Train: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Evergreen: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Jigsaw Catch: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Carousel: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Richer In Body And Soul: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Warhead (UK Subs): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Shivers: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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.

I was pointed at The Word Magazine Podcast by a BBC programme on podcasting that I listened to yesterday. I liked the sound of it so I went to their website and filled my boots. Only heard one episode so far, but it’s pretty cool and probably a ‘must get’ if you’re a music fan and like the whole podcast thing…which I do. Well worth subscribing to it.