GIGS
Wdnesday 5th October 2011
The Crown Inn, Theale
open-mic hosted by Roger Watson
"A Victim Of My Own Success"
Last week I spoke of how I'm always "chuffed" when people start dancing when I'm playing. It kind of backfired on me last night when in the middle of the second song, Something Wild, a pretty woman started dancing right in front of me which resulted in me getting distracted and being unable to remember the third verse. (And the lyrics to that song, in particular, need some care). I stopped and explained what has happened, which I think caused some amusement (and hopefully not too much embarrassment to the "cause"); restarting the song from the top everything went fine. Anyway, I've learnt how to deal with this now and so as many pretty women who want to dance in front of me are more than welcome.
I always like going to The Crown, Roger Watson (the MC) and Warren Larkins (the landlord) and their friends always make me feel welcome though I hardly know them. Also, I guess for me, there's always the feeling of going back to my roots as it's round the corner from where my grandparents lived and there was a time, many many years ago, when my grandfather would regularly go to The Crown. There's also an added poignancy as I drive past The Bull in Theale and seem to always recall the time I had to tell my grandfather that my grandmother had died.
Anyway, my performance seemed to go okay last night (somewhere between Monday and last Thursday quality-wise I think). Cold Heart particularly seemed to be well received (it even got complimented later). I think I've always been a bit sneery towards the song musically as it's very simplistic but as I've rehearsed it, it does seem to have taken on a life of its own and become a nice little "rocking" number. I hadn't realised until I started editing the video recently that it seemed to be well received at the debut gig too.
Finally, I just want to add that Roger Watson does really good "topical" songs and I thought his commentary on the recent riots to Jessie J's song "Price Tag" was very good. Apparently that isn't on his Watsonworld YouTube Channel yet but his other performances are worth checking out - very clever.
songs performed:
