Nervous tension...

Tonight was the CBQ gig at Lamb’s House for Out of the Bedroom’s Fringe run, “Out of Bounds”. I had still not fully recovered from my flu bout and we were chronically under-rehearsed, in fact, Andy, Jamie and I were about to play the songs for the first time tonight as a trio.

I’d tried to rehearse the set without my words and music but failed miserably with regard to the song “Snowfall” and so decided to drop it from the set and replace it with “I Re-Arranged The House”.

At the hall and when Andy arrived we had a quick discussion re the changes and he convinced me to play “Snowfall” on the basis that he’d back me on piano and I wouldn’t play – in the same way as we were to do “Very Small”.

So we rejigged the set list to move the two piano pieces away from each other and got ready to go.

By 9:30 the hall had filled up nicely and we took the stage after the first open-mic slot. The onstage sound was not the best – my guitar was far too loud and so I had trouble hearing Jamie or Andy. Reports from out front though said the sound was fine.

The finalised set was:-

A Nice Job In A Small Town
Half A Lifetime Away
Snowfall
The Gardener
Twenty Twenty Vision
The Crocodile Song
Very Small
The End Of Everything

Unlike many of the acts, we seemed to be in the minority in that we’d actually taken note of the fact that the set was to be 25 minutes and timed our songs accordingly.

Most of the nights have over-run because of people playing for too long. I heard of one particular prima donna who, when told he had 8 minutes left, proceeded to play his three longest songs. Arse.

Anyway, our 25 minutes came and went, though I only really started to enjoy it once we got to “The Crocodile Song”. Of course the “woof woof” interlude re the small dog in “The Gardener” got a laugh...

We were followed by Lisa Paton – she has a superb voice and a great relaxed performance style, though she confessed afterwards to being hugely nervous – it didn’t show – I wonder if my nerves do?

We stayed for Andy Patterson, another accomplished singer-songwriter, who mainly used the piano, and then headed home as I wasn’t feeling too great and Anne wanted to get home.

Andy had already left after Lisa’s set and so we left Jamie to fulfil his task as compere for the evening...

So no more live gigs for me now.