Sunday 7 September 2008

The Candle Club!


At last I can say that I have played The Candle Club !

This is a great club based at the Back of The Talking Heads pub in Portswood Southampton.
I have been checking it out for a few months but, for reasons I will tell you later, had not played.
the idea is that you turn up and book a 10 minute slot, hang around until that time, then play. There are a set of traffic lights to the left of the stage. They stay on green for 7 minutes, then 2 on amber. When they switch to red you stop playing. The stage is huge, the place is a bit of a barn, the p.a. is top class as is the lighting. The audience is great and will get bigger when the uni students return. The atmosphere is very very friendly and professional. There are a few regulars that come along every week, I think. One of which is Kim Tecno who I missed last week but have seen before. A performance poet of the stoned, pissed off, reflective kind. His ranty observational funny verses are complemented by what I can only describe as "kick ass techno" which he plays himself on a small silver keyboard. His shambling disorganised persona is original and very funny. I highly suspect that this is not an "act" and he is like this. I bloody hope so!

"So why haven't you played before?" I hear you ask.

You'd forgotten that bit hadn't you? Do try and pay a little attention!

I think it was a mixture of confidence (lack thereof) actually it was just confidence. 
The act of turning up asking "Please sir, can I play?" was just a bit scary.
It's just ridiculous I know, I've done so many gigs played to hundreds but this "please" was just stopping me. I had been putting of playing for months but had finally ditched that weedy little wanky voice in my head and just thought "Fuck it!" and did it.

I now swagger, yes swagger, now that I've done it. It may sound like a small thing to you and it wasn't a huge thing for me but big enough for me to think of it as a fear faced and defeated. 

I did play well, if you give a tinker's cuss, and I sang like a dirty angel. Just two tunes; How Do You Sleep (with the new very high notes!) and All I Think About Is You (which I am in the process of recording and will be releasing as a single....kind of)

I will be there tomorrow, oh yes.....

1 comment:

TFATDHQ said...

I'll add you to my blog roll - not sure - i'm keen on the traffic lights thing - my blog is moving to http://mattstevensguitar.blogspot.com/ but people seem to like it on myspace!

Speak soon mate