I played my first reasonable length gig for ages the other night at my old friends' Dave and John's acoustic night at a cafe in Cambridge. I had a really nice time and the audience were pretty appreciative, though nobody bought anything. I miss the days when people would buy things. The change seemed to coincide with me getting a lot of CDs made rather than burning them as I needed them. There was one lovely moment during You Won't Break My Heart when a bottle nosily fell over, and I shrugged it off, only for another bottle to fall over 10 seconds later. I wish I'd changed the words to "you won't break my glass". I think there might be video... Setlist: The Ghost of Paddy's Night Past, Watertight, This Place is Dead Anyway (featuring the harmonica for the first time live. It's been a long time since I tried it, and might be a while again...) A Folly or a Fortress (with Annie singing the harmony very nicely), You Won't Break My Heart, Edinburgh. I really miss playing.
So, despite the fact that I'm off to New York today, and hadn't packed, and work was incredibly busy with something that needed to get done before I left, I've been to gigs on both of the last two nights. My schedule would've been slightly less stressful if I wasn't having to spend an extra 45 minutes a day walking because some little shite nicked my bike on Tuesday lunchtime. I've not had it long (I'd been borrowing it for a while but only paid for it this weekend!) but it's surprising how dependent you become. I've lived in Cambridge for a long time now and peole are always saying bike crime is rife, but I've never experienced any until now. I was bringing it out of my side gate and left it at the back of my (not that small) front garden while I bolted the gate from and went out of the front door. As I came out of the front door I noticed a kerfuffle at the end of my drive as a scummy looking kid in a green T shirt and presumably an earring nearly cycled into a woman, but what I wasn't quite out of my house quickly enough to see was that he'd come out of the drive with my bike. He was most of the way down the street before I realised what had happened, and I made a half arsed attempt at running after, but couldn't catch him. The bike must've been there for all of 30 seconds and he must have seen me leave it there. Only kids would be that cheeky. Anyway if anyone in Cambridge sees a kid with the face of a 50 year old riding a black bike with Claude Butler written on it in red and white, kick him. And take my bike back.
Anyway, on Wednesday a bunch of us went to The Junction to see Emmy The Great, who seems to be riding on a wave of critical acclaim for her new album, which I like, but, as is often the way, not as much as the one before the journalists all jumped on the bandwagon (c.f. Regina Spektor, Okkervil River, Bon Iver). We got a cheeky Nando's beforehand, just because it's there really, and took our seats (seriously, what's with all the seated gigs these days - I'm going to see Steve Earle and The Dukes (and Duchesses) in November and that's seated too. Stuff sounds less good sitting down) just in time for the opening act Stealing Sheep, who were pretty enthralling at the time. 3 girls singing spooky ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh aah-aah-aah-aah harmonies with spooky creeping skeleton keyboards and spooky reverby tremelo bar-tastic guitar and a spooky standing up drumkit that could've been a cauldron. I enjoyed it, but I don't remember any individual songs especially.
Emmy the Great's set was mostly from the new album, or even newer, or a fun cover of Island in the Sun by Weezer - I think there were 3 off the first and one really old song (Canopies and Drapes), but we got MIA so I was happy really. Absentee would've been nice, but I guess you have to promote the latest stuff. The band weren't quite as tight as you might expect (a couple of the songs went distinctly wobbly especially Trellick Tower, which is wonderful on the record) but it didn't matter mostly and watching them did make me really want to be in a band that gets to travel round playing every night and apologising each time for being hungover. There was an old style double decker London bus out the back of The Junction. I wonder if it was theirs.
Last night was Withered Hand at my favourite venue in London, The Borderline. It was nice to see they've put the historical records of who played there in the 90's back on the walls as you go down the stairs. March-April 1993 was ridiculous. First act, The Kittens were charming in a ramshackle way and are the only band I've ever seen with 2 harmoniums (harmonia?). One harmonium would've probably done. My friend was convinced that they also featured the soundman from the previous night. I was convinced that Dougie Anderson off Fighting Talk and the telly was in the crowd, and a bit of Twitter stalking proved me right, so maybe he was right about the soundman too. I didn't really understand what was good about the second act, Rozi Plain, though some of the more energetic drumming was fun, but I wasn't as damning as a guy at the bar who said he'd never seen a gents toilet get so crowded so quickly. Nice. Withered Hand was (were? - I can never tell with these solo act takes another name then enlists backing musicians style acts) even better than I'd hoped. He has a, er, charmingly reaching voice and on the record it sounds like it might be a little weak in a live setting, but it really wasn't. The band were great too, with banjo, violin, mandolin and cello all making appearances. It's been a while since I've been at something where Darren Hayman randomly popped up, but he stood in for a few new songs playing a tiny bass guitar. They were a lot noisier and (I suspect) a lot less rehearsed than the older material, but sounded pretty promising. I had an awkward time afterwards buying a T shirt, because the one I wanted on the table (that I thought was white bt isn't) said "for ladies" on the label so I wanted to check it was a men's one. Then they only had them in small, but they were from America so the size only refers to how wide the neck hole is. Good times.