Concurrence signalled...

Playlist
Joni Mitchell – The Hissing of Summer Lawns
King Crimson – Lizard
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III
Mott the Hoople – Mott
Neu – Neu ‘75
Cloudland Blue Quartet – Soundingfall
Wings – Venus and Mars
Pink Floyd – Meddle

Struggled tonight with my decision, taken yesterday evening, following the disastrous football performance, to return to the fray at Out of the Bedroom, an Edinburgh songwriters’ club…



In January 2003, a visit to this night with Jim Park and James Jamieson led me to return to live performance after a period of around five years…

I ended up being on the committee and also produced a number of CDs featuring the best acts of the day…

In 2003 I played there almost every fortnight, in 2004 I averaged once every four weeks, in 2005 and 2006 my appearances halved again, while in 2007 it was once a quarter and last year I only played once…

The initial reduction in appearances coincided with increased gigging elsewhere but, over the last couple of years, what with the broken ankle and shoulder operations, I’ve generally pulled back a bit again from performing…

And so, tonight, it was with some trepidation that I set off around 7pm and drove over to the venue in the centre of town to play for the first time since last May...

And I’d decided to debut three of my new songs...

So I was rather nervous...

Compere Rob Sproul-Cran was top notch and the acts who managed to get a slot on this, the first night of the club in 2009, were, in the main, excellent – with almost a year having elapsed since my last visit, there were only a couple of the other players whom I’d seen before...

By pure coincidence old chum, sometime Tangerine Dream reviewer and fellow blogger, Martin Lennon was in the audience and he gave me some much needed encouragement...

As did music cohort Mr Pol, at whose house party I played a couple of years ago and who, tonight, promised to introduce me to a new way of performing via the web which could widen my audience considerably…

My slot was 10pm but the night was over-running so it was around twenty past by the time I was introduced as a stalwart of the “scene” in Edinburgh – which I thought was quite good considering in the last 18 months I’ve only played one gig and a couple of songs at open mics...

After some mucking about mic-ing up my trusty Cloudland Blue Guitar and then settling on a spot where my lyric sheets might go which would allow me to see them under the glare of the spotlight, I was off...

“We Drove” (most recent demo here) was my opener – obviously it didn’t sound as good as the current recording since tonight it was just me and the guitar and the song only has one chord sequence – but it seemed to go down well...

Then “Please Stay With Us” (most recent demo here) which is fine to play in my bedroom but, in front of an audience with the nerves kicking in, the falsetto parts were a bit wayward to say the least – I think I pulled it off though...

Last was “Blend” (most recent demo here) the song of the three with which I’m most familiar and I believe I sang it pretty well all told – the audience reaction seemed to signal concurrence with that view…

Afterwards, I was complimented by a few people (which always makes your day as a performer), including star turn of the night, Lee Patterson and his guest guitarist Dave Williams – who had put in a brilliant 30 minute set as the highlight of the evening...

To cap a great night, I ended up winning the raffle – as I stuck my hand into the famous “Silver Bag of Dreams”, I felt a familiar shape and pulled out the star prize, a copy of Lee’s brand new album...

Back home to Anne and ended the night with some classic Pet Shop Boys videos, borrowed by mistake from Chris-with-a-ch as he’d inadvertently put it in the case for the outtakes DVD from “Mock the Week”...

What a good day...

Highlight of the Day : Playing live again...