Short notice...

Today I agreed to go along to Out of the Bedroom tonight to write the review of proceedings....

I hadn't been there for 10 weeks - last time, I played with Jamie and Andy and it was really good....

I hadn't played my guitar for 8 weeks (except for singing a couple of songs in the back bedroom around a month ago). So perhaps it was a mistake to think I should play a three song set tonight at some point but, to be honest, I never like to go to OOTB without playing....

And so, I spent all of 15 minutes running through bits of various songs from the new album trying to decide what to play. Then I had the idea of taking along words and music to all fourteen and asking the audience to shout out numbers and I'd play songs by chance (it crossed my mind that I could pretend my three "favourites" just happened to be the numbers chosen)...

During the evening I abandoned this stupid plan and got the fourteen down to a shortlist of six - "Half a Lifetime Away", "Very Small", "Still We Doubt You", "The Gardener", "Anything But Ill" and "Where Are You"...

Throughout the evening there were quite a few songs re lost love etc etc (as you'd imagine) and so I plumped for the three of the six on the list which have nothing to do with that in any way - "Still We Doubt You", "The Gardener" and "Anything But Ill"...

My performance, from my perspective, was not great, although the reception was. It took a minute or so to get the guitar in tune - the two OOTB house guitars are very expensive, good looking machines but they are notoriously easily knocked out of tune...

So the factors which counted against a good performance were:-

Out of tune guitar
Lack of practise
Fingers which, through lack of recent playing, quickly became sore
Sore left arm (I fell up the stairs the other day due to ill-fitting sandals - don't ask - exacerbating a chronic condition)
My inability to hold a guitar properly whilst sitting down
A rather high action on the chosen guitar in comparison with that which I'm used to on my own guitars
General rubbishness...

Despite all this, since the audience was so generous, I still enjoyed it....

Next time though, I should give myself a bit more notice....