Art for Cure's sake.

I’ve played in an art gallery before. That time, one of our audience had rather over-enthusiastically pursued the pre-gig refreshments and as a result had been sick on the carpet next to where he was sitting. Having covered the offending result with his jacket until it was time to leave – we’d been warned about not creating a mess - if I recall correctly, he then put it back on and sauntered casually out. There seemed little likelihood of this sort of behaviour re-occurring in the genteel seaside ambience of the Garage Gallery in Aldeburgh, where by an odd set of diversions I had been contracted to play along with a friend-of-a-friend to accompany the launch of Art for Cure’s She - An inspired collection of paintings, sculpture, ceramics and prints, all about women. I had been promised fine wines, exotic nibbles and (quote) ‘minor celebrities’ and indeed the fizz flowed and the platters of oysters circulated, as did Clive Anderson. Since it was a Friday night and I was in Aldeburgh, I plumped for fish and chips for I felt it was not the time to break my “No oysters before the first set" rule, especially on a dep gig and certainly not after the unfortunate incident with the coconut chunks which so very nearly derailed the SftBH sound check that time.

Poppy, my employer for the evening, and I had spent every Thursday night for the previous six weeks working through her suggested set list – me trying to second guess the changes on a broadly unfamiliar selection of songs so I didn’t have to rely on crib notes and she reading lyrics off an iphone (which lead to the rather surreal incident where Siri tried to answer the question ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’ mid-rehearsal) and we’d reached the point where, as we set the PA up in brilliant sunshine under a gazebo by the beach, we were feeling pretty good about our two-set ability to entertain the great and the good of the Suffolk art world. This was effectively our last night of the school play. There seemed to be a few people checking their phones and dire mutterings about weather warnings, but aren’t there always? No need to worry about it, I said. Always blow themselves out before they hit the coast these squalls, I promised. Probably go off down the river; I'd even reassured myself. It was during Belinda’s introductory speech that the storm hit. Great, vertical, inch-thick stair rods of thundering rain which quite drew the attention away from India Knight’s exhibition opening ribbon-cutting. Lovely woman, India, by the way. Vapes like a docker.

Having moved peremptorily into the nearest room, and with no end to the maelstrom in sight, the now slightly damp Pops and I re-struck the stage and embarked upon our performance to the accompaniment of conversational buzz and with a backdrop by Samantha Barnes. Obviously one likes to be the very fulcrum of attention whenever essaying one’s talent live, but it quickly became apparent that the level of appreciation I was receiving throughout our performance was less due to my almost zen employment of the fingerpicking nuances of Lindsey Buckingham (in this case ‘Landslide’ – many of the songs in the set were approved due to their agreeably four-chord nature) but more because people were checking the price tags on the prints behind us. “I’m sorry I’m getting so close” said one over the rim of her flute of pink champagne. “It’s just that I don’t have my glasses with me”. “In which case, I can assure you that I am terrifically good-looking” I bantered. “Oh, silly, I don’t need my readers to be able to tell that” she replied, raffishly. 

We finished up, high-fived ourselves at having started and ended all the songs at roughly the same time and in the same key, and looked out at the artist-customised deck chairs arrayed along the beach under a bruised slate-grey sky. The fund raising continued as we packed away. “Come on people" I heard someone say "Who wants to park themselves on a wet Maggi Hambling?”