HALF A YEAR (two gigs)

You know when you haven’t played a lot of sports for a long time and you end up joining the local football team as a new years resolution and after the first ten minutes of playing you end up doing a whitey on the floor, gasping for air? Well when you haven’t done gigs in a long time it’s very similar, apart from the shin guards and the all men’s showers.

Yesterday and today I played two gigs. The first one was at the inSpiral Lounge http://www.inspiralled.net/. It’s a very well situated eco-friendly bar on the Camden canal, which serves 100% natural vegetarian food (that’s what they say on the menu… what the hell would 70% vegetarian food look like?) and is mostly populated by 21st century hippies on crack. That being said, the atmosphere is very friendly and the music is great. I played third after a middle aged country singer who probably hadn’t washed his hair for eight years and an Indian “prophet” who spoke about eggs, china and donkeys if my memory is good.  I think I sang well, I got a loud applause and the audience asked me to play some more. I was a bit rusty, not that I made any mistakes, it’s just that when you haven’t been on stage for so long you remember how much matching pressure and precision at the same time is so difficult. When you’re on stage you start to think to yourself out loud, everything becomes a bit blurry, in slow motion and that’s when you start to get the shakes. Best choice is to look at the audience, smile and not think at all.

Today I played a gig at The Earl of Camden http://earlofcamden.com/ . This is a modern looking sport pub, frequented by the typical English crowd. Let’s be stereotypical: by that I mean loud, drunk and not very attentive to the music unless the girlfriend starts to enjoy it and says, “shoosh will you”. The girl organizing the show was the first one up to play and wow she could sing! I was so impressed I went out and got myself I piece of pizza to get over it (bit random). The moment I got back the second act had just finished and my name was shouted out, leaving me no time to wipe my greasy fingers. I felt much calmer on stage apart from the occasional burps in between songs leaving me to think that eating before a gig is usually not the best option, unless you want to cover your fans with digested pepperoni?

Well now I can say that I am back in the game, I got my “mojo” back and getting re-used to things that came so naturally before. I am ready to gig more, everyday if I have the chance.