I did two lots of playing last week. I know! The first was at CB2 with Joseph Williams and SH Davidson from Tellison ( officially my 13th favourite band). Joe lives in Sardinia now and still managed to put a great night on, which puts me to shame really. He's also really good, despite refusing to play my favourite song of his ("Pigeon French" - see if you can find it on the internet).
I got really into my set and people were nice enough about it. I need to stop starting with Cold Case though - I always seem to mess up the guitar.
Setlist: Cold Case, The Ghost of Paddy's Night Past, Watertight, Muscle Memory, 60 Miles With a Slow Puncture, Heat Death. A Follly or a Fortress, Black Coffee and Bromide
Stephen was, predictably, great - plenty of songs from the forthcoming Tellison album, some from the other Tellison albums and some that I suspect won't ever be on Tellison albums on account of being a bit more light hearted.
Then on Friday night I went to the Folk Club for the first time in ages for a special night that was part of their 50th Anniversary celebrations. I remember their 40th Anniversary celebrations. I felt old then for God's sake. Anyway, this was called The Inspiration Session and the idea was you played a song that inspired you to write a song, and then that song. I don't think I've ever been directly inspired by one song from another (though Phosphorus Burn came from me failing to play Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez) so I played "Levelland" by James McMurtry (I'd never tried to play it before about half an hour before I left to go there) and "Heat Death" and then "If I Wrote You" by Dar Williams and "Edinburgh" ("this song inspired me to write better songs"). It was lovely to see everyone, and a lot of the old faces were playing. Though not as many as all that from 10 years ago.
Then the other night I saw the full version of Tellison. I reckon it's been a year since I heard a real snare drum. They sound incredible when you're in the room with them. They played most of The Hits, and sounded wonderful despite their keyboard player having left the day before and everything needing to be hastily rearranged. I wouldn't have known.