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"It'll sound different when there's some people in..."
We did the Gods Kitchen gig on Sunday in a reasonably
hitchless fashion – nobody fell off the stage, I fulfilled a hitherto
unrealised ambition by coming on to intro music (The Battle by Fairport Convention, in case you were wondering), we
switched the mirror ball on at an appropriate juncture during the set, which
created a nice atmosphere, and I forgot very few of the lyrics during the
course of the show – including even the one we’d not played since 1992 (the
date of the rehearsal was on the cassette we re-learned it from) and the brand
new one we hadn’t previously played at all. Best, I think, was the way a cinematograph
whirred away in my head as we worked our way through the big list of songs, the
characters from them drifting wraith-like across my mind, gesturing imaginary
salutations cheerily toward the stage in acknowledgement of their elevation to my own personal iconography. More importantly, we played most of the right notes, in mostly the right order.
Through the kind attentions of www.therecordingbooth.co.uk I was
able to collect a reference CD of the gig shortly after we’d completed it. I
resisted the temptation to listen to it straight away and am subsequently enjoying it even
as I write these words, the soft-lit memory of the performance being gently corrected in favour of the actualité. For instance, live on stage, guest for one number James Partridge screamed a Beatlesque "Turn me on!" into the microphone as he launched into a blazing guitar solo. Turns out he was shouting "Turn me up!" at the sound man. If I were to venture an observation, it would probably be
that we started out with the intention of sounding like REM playing a bunch of
Richard Thompson numbers and seem to have ended up sounding like The Cure doing
some Elvis Costello demos. Frankly, I blame my eighties musical genes and their
predisposition toward overuse of the chorus pedal. Ah well, you can’t have everything.
Where would you put it?*
*Steven Wright.
We did the Gods Kitchen gig on Sunday in a reasonably
hitchless fashion – nobody fell off the stage, I fulfilled a hitherto
unrealised ambition by coming on to intro music (The Battle by Fairport Convention, in case you were wondering), we
switched the mirror ball on at an appropriate juncture during the set, which
created a nice atmosphere, and I forgot very few of the lyrics during the
course of the show – including even the one we’d not played since 1992 (the
date of the rehearsal was on the cassette we re-learned it from) and the brand
new one we hadn’t previously played at all. Best, I think, was the way a cinematograph
whirred away in my head as we worked our way through the big list of songs, the
characters from them drifting wraith-like across my mind, gesturing imaginary
salutations cheerily toward the stage in acknowledgement of their elevation to my own personal iconography. More importantly, we played most of the right notes, in mostly the right order. 
4 comments:
I often did shout 'Turn me up!' at that point. No-one ever did. :-)
Have I heard 'Stretch Armstrong'?
It seems unlikely John, but there should be an opportunity when I get the retweaked mix ("More room!") back from my man with the faders and put some snippets on Soundcloud. That's the one that predated Vampire Weekend by about twenty years, by the way.
You can, of course, listen to the original version here - http://bluehouserecords.bandcamp.com/album/south-of-somewhere
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