Blog: Totally Acoustic

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It seems like AGES since we last did a Totally Acoustic and I was slightly WORRIED that a) the pub would have forgotten about us and b) nobody would come. The LATTER seemed about to come true when, on the way, I got a text from Chief Regular Mr S Hewitt saying he couldn't come. DISASTER! FEAR! But all was well - I arrived to find nearly ALL other regulars had already arrived and were happily ENBEERED, and loads of OTHER people were swiftly filtering in.

Not least of which was Mr Pete Green, who I'd not seen for AGES and who seemed Actually Quite Pleased to be told that he was the first person to play TWICE. I've avoided re-booking until now, just to try and keep things FRESH but I think we've done ENOUGH that I can now start re-inviting people, and the first one really HAD to be Pete, The Patron Saint Of Totally Acoustic. A few minutes later our other act, Mr Simon Fox arrived, with guitar AND Banjo, and we were complete!

My other worry, that the pub would forget us, was also ill-founded - INDEED, I had a bit of an old chat about it with Leigh The Landlord, who was VERY keen on us coming back in the New Year. "We've put a new sound system in up there", he said, "so you can play music between the acts, and hopefully plug microphones in so you don't have to play acoustically!" Maybe not that last bit, but otherwise GRATE, and his ENTHUSIASM finally convinced me that maybe next year I'll book more than one in advance - I might even go KRAZY and book a whole BATCH, before I've even got people to play them.

The room had gently FILLED and so, not too long after 7.30pm I went on and did THIS:

The Gay Train

A Little Bit

Strangely Attractive

I Got You What You Want For Christmas

The Advent Calendar Of FACT

It Only Works Because You're Here

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

Billy Jones Is Dead

The Lesson Of The Smiths

That setlist doesn't really tell the full story, however, as there was a LOT of Messing About. And by "a LOT" i mean REALLY A LOT - it took AGES to get round to actually SINGING A Little Bit, not least because I'd MEANT to play Never Going Back To Aldi's but got confused/WAYLAID by the fact they sound a bit similar.

Other lovely bits included first Charlie then EVERYONE joining in with shouting out the door numbers in The Advent Calendar Of FACT. This was BRILLIANT - and would have been even more so if I hadn't got all excited and done bits wrong, or indeed if the pacing of the numbers didn't keep changing all the way through. It was ACE tho, and Charlie didn't seem to mind when I compared him to a) MADGE from Dame Edna and b) KEVIN THE GERBIL.

One day I'll get to the point of just not bothering to do songs and JABBERING for half an hour, it was FAB. As indeed was Mr Simon Fox aka World Of Fox who came on next and was ENTIRELY different, and ENTIRELY GRATE. OOH it was lovely, he did SPELLBINDING (Music Journo Talk) songs beautifully played and GORGEOUSLY sung. I wanted to say "It's like Susan Boyle" but thought maybe that wouldn't come across quite how i meant it i.e. that he has a wonderful TONE to his singing that makes you want to sit and LISTEN to it. Here in the world of The Indiepop we tend to make do with the voices we have and not to VALUE The Voice as much as in other areas, so when you hear someone who can SING RIGHT PROPER like that it makes you sit up and take HEED.

There was another BEER BREAK and it was time for Mr Pete Green to take to the stage and be GRATE, as ever - I am sure I do not need to repeat my admiration for Mr Green, it is A MATTER OF RECORD, but I especially enjoyed his set this time because there was LOADS of new stuff in it. Maybe it's because I've not seen him for a while, but it felt like half the material was NEW to me. His Christmas Song was ACE, also MOVING, but best of all was the new song he FINISHED on, "Subterranean Mosely Blues" (or something like that - it is as yet not finally TITLED) which was a huge wideranging PROTEST song, but a GOOD one - like "A Country Practice" by The Half Man Half Biscuits really, covering LOADS of stuff and then thundering back at the end for a PROPER MESSAGE. It was fantastic - when he announced it as his last song I thought "Has he gone MAD? Finishing with a NEW SONG?" but it was BRILLIANT.

And then the evening gently rolled downhill into Just One More Beer, CHAT, and a whole lot of hugging before I strode out into the night, feeling all CHRISTMASSY and EAGER to do a whole lot more lovely gigs like this next year!

posted 2/12/2009 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

Thanks again for having us, and ta for the lovely write-up!

A couple of my songs from the night are on Youtube, if anyone's interested, including the above-mentioned protest song.
posted 3/12/2009 by Pete Green

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