White Bear Promotions
presents:
HUMPHREY SITIMA / ANDREW SHEARER / JASON RIORDAN
"Mr Prolific"
The title refers to me in response to a comment that Jason Riordan made during his excellent set that preceded me: "This song is a couple of years old but I like it so I'm going to play it anyway." Well, lo and behold the first song that I played tonight was 22 years old and having drawn the audience's attention to the fact I changed the order of my set so that I could then let on that actually Love You To Death is four years older than that. To add salt to the wound I then disclosed that the newest song of my set Something Wild uses the same music as Love You To Death. Mr Prolific indeed.
It's not that I'm lazy (honest!) I'm constantly writing but these songs that I'm playing at the moment seem to be growing / evolving as I play them and in the process I'm becoming more confident as a performer and of the songs. I think this continues to be a useful exercise for me at the moment.
Anyway, my admission of the longevity of the songs (and I guess therefore my own! ha ha) created a fairly lighthearted atmosphere where the audience seemed to laugh in all the right places. I actually felt that perhaps in spite (or because of) the lightheartedness it was one of my best ever performances. I think the act of hanging the set around something that was unique to the evening made it easier to connect to the audience and was therefore less of an "act".
The highlight of the evening for me was Humphrey Sitema, a very personable young man whose easy-goingness betrayed how good he is. Once he is on stage with his guitar however you realise that here is someone extremely talented. I don't like the Cowellesque shows like The Voice, or Britain's Got Talent (nor does Humphrey I later learnt) but I could see him winning something like that. It was really no surprise to hear at the weekend that he had gained a place at RADA. Remember the name because I'm pretty sure you'll hear it again.
My Set
- Last Night I Saw You Standing There
- Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie)
- Love You To Death
- Something Wild
- The Things That She Said
- Sympathy For The Devil (Jagger / Richards)
- Get Up!
- Cold Heart
- You've Got The Magic Back
Also, just a reminder I'm supporting Robert Sowden on Saturday at The Greyhound
