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MISS WHIPLASH |
posted by jim on 2/10/06
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That's the question Do I miss whiplash? The ache and the stiffness I woke up with the day after the second of two gigs at the Barfly in London, the one where I played a half hour punk set with a six piece supergroup we’re calling The Abdou Girls. All that headbanging on stage – particularly during the long instrumental wig out at the end of Angelstrike! – it’s given me an incredibly stiff neck. I’m just not used to such rocking out anymore.
The second part of this Best Of tour began in Sheffield. Marc wasn’t there again, just me and Mr Spoons and Spoons having to do the work of two. A weird gig, less people than last time I’d played there – well, less people to see me that is. There was a big queue pretty early on, all about 16 to 18 years old and there for the two support acts. I sat backstage while Spoons was on the merch stall out front and I could hear a lot of screaming and cheering for the first dude on stage. It sounded like Westlife might be doing a surprise gig. Taking a peek I could see a large crowd of enthusiastic young folks who I knew and feared would leave the building pretty much as soon as I set foot onstage. I felt very old. Came onstage incidentally to the Little Man Tate single ‘House Party At Boothy’s’. The ‘Tate have been using ‘Sheriff Fatso’ as their intro tape for a while and I thought it would be a funny thing to return the gesture. Don’t know whether anybody noticed.
Marc was back for Birmingham. We got stuck in a gridlock in the centre of the city for two hours when loads of main roads were closed after a series of knife attacks. The policeman outside the gig when we eventually got there told us it was a terrorist attack but he was just showing off and it turned out to be the start of a midweek orgy of teenage gang violence that would include two kids being shot in the queue at Brixton McDonalds. Are things spiralling out of control? The Birmingham gig was great, one of the best of the tour. I started to rethink my retirement.
Which brings us to the two London shows. For the first one – partially because I’m always too stressed to eat before London gigs and partially because I found gin and tonic in a tin in Sainsbury’s for £1.39 – I was a bit tipsy and I really enjoyed myself. On the way home Mr Spoons’ popemobile was hit by a truck on Waterloo Bridge and if the lorry driver hadn’t fallen asleep I think Spoons might have beaten him to death with his Yorkie bar.
I’d asked Les (Fruitbat) if he’d put together a band based around Abdoujaparov to play some of my punkier numbers at the final gig of the tour. The supergroup, who we called The Abdou Girls, as they were a mix of Abdoujaparov (Les, Richy Crockford) and the Subliminal Girls
(Arran J Lovechild, Jim Rhesus, Jimmy 2 Shoes and Danny Le Pelley) managed to make a fantastic racket and as I say, I got into it and that’s why I’ve got this stiff neck. That’s another band formed and split for people to ask if they’ll ever reform again.
Today I went to a press launch for Dick Whittington & His Cat at the Barbican, where I was filmed for ‘The Culture Show’ (look out for it on a Saturday night BBC2 soon) and got to meet the cast and crew, including the lovely Roger Lloyd Pack , with whom I posed for quite a few press pics, look out for those too. And Miles Jupp whose first live music experience was when he won tickets for the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party in 1991. I was talking to the musical director and arranger Sarah Travis about what she’s going to do with my songs and I’m looking forward to hearing them develop into something special. It’s all very exciting. Still don’t know who’ll be singing one of my songs, I’ve been imagining various famous people who it might be. More news soon. Need to get some sea-sickness pills for the Isle of Man trip.
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TOUR DIARY PART ONE – my longest ever blog entry |
posted by jim on 25/09/06
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FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD
In Cambridge we had chips from the Chinese opposite the venue in Cambridge. We sat in the back of the Popemobile to eat them because we wanted to get away from the argument that was about to begin inside the gig over the rubbish PA system that five separate people would unscrew, solder and screw back together again through the course of the day. The promoter for the gig Steve is a lovely bloke and shows that when promoters do what is suggested they might do by their job title, the gig will invariably be a lot more successful and well attended. I don’t know why more promoters don’t have a go at this system, they’d make more money themselves and be a lot happier than some of them seem to be. So in spite of the rubbish PA, Steve’s enthusiastic promoting – including booking 2 quality support acts – helped make for a great gig. My first attempt at solo electric guitar wasn’t too embarrassing either and I managed to slot in a few new songs, including my soon-to-be-one-day novelty hit ‘the Wheels On The Bus’.
The next day was a day off. Not because we were already exhausted one date in to the tour but because Mr Spoons (roadie, driver, tour guide, webmaster, tough looking bubble machine operator, loud snorer, etc, etc) who will be suffering with chronic toothache all week had a Crystal Palace game to go to in Norwich. Instead of going home me and Marc (manager, comedian, moonwalker, mature student, etc, etc) went along to the game with Spoons. Palace won with a goal in the last minute and then we went to the rub a dub dub followed by a very nice Italian meal, with wine and dessert, the whole bit. Afterwards we retired to our empty hotel bar and the games machine which had about thirty different triv and TV related quiz games on it. Naturally we chose the Q Magazine quiz and pissed ourselves laughing to be greeted by a big picture of me and Fruitbat under the heading ‘Where Are They Now?’. As we played the game the picture would keep returning, until it started to annoy me and we moved onto ‘Deal Or No Deal’ with the voice and face of old tidy beard Noel Edmonds.
Before the Portsmouth gig we had a speedy Thai meal. The gig was superb, as it was last time. Lots of banter between act and audience. Almost a stand up comedy performance with music, like Richard Digance or Sid Little
Marc had to return to London due to forseen circumstances, leaving me and Mr Spoons on our own to deal with the turning up as late as he possibly can promoter/soundman. The Bristol gig is a free to get in gig and I get paid with money put in to a jug by the audience. Last time we went there we got one free drink each. This time they’d cut it back to one free drink for the performers only, not for Mr Spoons who does all the real work. With hindsight I wish I’d told them to shove their free drink up their tight arse, but I’m so soft these days you could call me a pillow and so I said nothing. I’d actually prefer no free drink rather than one. One is somehow more insulting. Especially when you consider the amount of money they make off the bar on what’s probably one of their fuller nights and how they don’t have to pay me because that money also comes from the punters. When bands go to Germany or Holland for the first time they often come back talking about how well they’d been treated and about all the free beer and food etc and how England is rubbish in the way it treats their bands. This is why. We didn’t have our usual after the Bristol show pizza at the restaurant up the road, mainly because I was too drunk to sit in a chair. Mr Spoons had though bought me my favourite sandwich. Which is the Veggie Delight from Subway
The Leeds gig was always going to be difficult. The venue had been changed and it had been impossible to buy advance tickets for the new venue where the – I refer you back to my first point about promoters – practically secret gig was taking place. Still, it was an alright gig, I was perhaps bullied into playing too many Carter hits but not the end of the world and we had Japanese noodles in an authentic looking place up a back street.
Glasgow 13th Note means vege burgers. We used to get these for free but those days seem to have gone. On the way to the gig we nipped into XFM Scotland to record an interview and three songs for broadcast the following Sunday. When we got the call to come in we were told they’d played a track of the Best Of album that morning and we said I bet it was The Only Living Boy In New Cross, which it was. I played acoustic versions of Touchy Feely, Back To School and New Cross for the Sunday show. Come Sunday they only had time to play one of the songs. Eeni meeni minie New Cross again. I often think the last 14 years have been a dream. It’s as though they never happened.
We’ve developed car trouble. The popemobile is having difficulty starting. We returned to a little pizza place in Worcester that we’d eaten at before, it was nice but I shouldn’t have had the Irish coffee as I returned to the Marr’s Bar in Worcester feeling bloated. Let’s be James blunt here, the gig was empty. I don’t know why. In spite of wanting to go home or to be swallowed up by the earth of Worcester the audience were up for making the very best of things and it was probably the most enthusiastic crowd (how many people do you need for a crowd?) of the tour. That night there were some nob jockeys at the hotel who’d obviously never stayed in a hotel before and so stayed up all night banging doors, running up and down the corridor, breaking things and eventually punching the receptionist and being arrested. We had not a single wink of sleep between us and got a refund.
To pass some time, instead of sitting around the venue or a Little Chef we went to the pictures. We saw the film Children Of Men, it was superb and as a sign of how rock and roll we are we paid for normal tickets and sat in the Premier seats. The last gig of the first half of the tour and we’re back at the Dog & Partridge in Bolton. It was as packed as any venue has ever been and made up for the empty Worcester gig. Drove home at night because Mr Spoon’s teeth are killing him and he needs emergency dental action. Back on the chips.
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TO THE TREEES! |
posted by jim on 12/09/06
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I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Center Parcs
I know some people have the fear of the parcs. They think it’s a big sci-fi-cold-war- nightmare domed building where everyone is forced to play badminton and live together and share sweat. They’re wrong. I wouldn’t go to such a place repeatedly like I do. Center Parcs for me is usually a big old Morrison family and friends trip but a few members of the group were unavailable for holidaying this year – my cousin James for example was on his sell out tour playing blue eyed soul to estate agents (no offence estate agent dudes) – so Mr Spoons joined us and along with Marc (us Tandy) it became a Team Jim Bob / big old Morrison family and friends trip instead.
After three days of ten pin bowling, adventure swimming and adventure golf, boating, line dancing (for the ladies), restauranting, boozing etc, my muscles are aching today. It’s only really with a couple of non injured fingers that I can manage to type my way through the pain with, and even they hurt somewhat from being stuffed into the holes of a large heavy bowling ball.
For a more detailed account of our wet and wild weekend, check out Marc’s myspace blog which I expect will appear shortly on the subject. When I say ‘shortly’ I of course mean ‘longly’. Is that a word? It is now.
‘Dick Whittington and His Cat’, for which I wrote a couple of songs is taking shape cast and crew wise. Roger Lloyd Pack (Trigger from Only Fools & Horses) has been announced as Sarah the Cook. News here: http://www.jim-bob.co.uk/news.shtml
and more here (including a rat squashing game):
I’ve been in the recording studio with Cable Street Spy Club ‘helping’ them with their first single. I really enjoyed the experience and was a bit envious of that gang thing you get with being in a band that maybe you don’t when you’re a solo performer.
Touring begins in a few days, I must rehearse. 8 potential new songs to perform.
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WINNIE THE POOH (AND TIGGER TOO) |
posted by jim on 1/09/06
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Do you like the new look of the website? Grey is the new black.
I was walking from the train station to my mum’s the other day and my path was blocked for a moment by some people cleaning up after their two dogs. There were what appeared to be three generations of people with the dogs. The grandmother was picking up the dogshit with her carrier bag gloved hand, while the mother was saying how annoying it was that the dog crapped in one place then moved a foot to the right and
dropped another steaming turd. “Why can’t he do them in one place?” She said. Later, on my way back to the station, as I walked past the same spot I saw that a horse had recently deposited an enormous hill of horseshit at the side of the road. I wondered why the horse’s rider or perhaps her mother hadn’t stopped to pick up the pooh, maybe with a larger carrier bag turned inside out over her hand. Maybe one from Dixons, big enough for a ghetto blaster or a Primark bargain coat sized carrier. And then I remembered that Dixons had shut down and had become Curry’s Digital.
Still writing songs. I might do some rudimentary demo recordings soon, to see what I’ve got. I’ve written seven songs so far, I’ll try and give most of them a go on tour. It’s a different way of doing things for me. I’ve tended recently to have recorded my songs before performing them.
I’m going to try some different stuff on tour, still mostly me and an acoustic guitar, singing songs but maybe a few other things thrown in to give me something to fuck up. Dangerous is the new safe.
I was watching Reading Festival on the telly – that can’t be right – and Edith Bowman was interviewing Franz Ferdinand about how they went to Reading as teenagers. When asked what bands they went to see, Alex Kapranos said (one band I didn’t catch the name of) and Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine.
Listening to the new Dears album at the moment.
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THE GERMANS HAVE A WORD FOR IT |
posted by jim on 21/08/06
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On the ‘Straw Donkey’ Carter video collection me, Les and Wez played ourselves in the future – 2035 I think it was – for the between song links. We had grey hair and bad backs (Les really did have the bad back) and in the case of me and Wez, we’d mysteriously developed comic posh English accents in our old age. Last week me and Les returned to the scene of the Donkey links to film an interview about Carter for a forthcoming Carter live in Germany DVD. I said to Les that it might be amusing to film it in the same place, especially as the room’s décor hadn’t changed in the past ten years. Les pointed out that as the Straw Donkey film had taken place in 2035 and hadn’t technically happened yet we might be somehow messing with the space time wotsit. Anyhow, it was our first ‘Carter’ interview for a decade and possibly our last until at least 29 more years. Sci fi!
I played a gig on a boat on the Thames. Everyone was dressed as pirates
It was a stormy day. The tide was high and the moored vessel was actually swaying about a fair bit. As I sat there waiting to go onstage, watching some other groups play and various river birds swim by, drinking my pint of lager I forgot where I was and thought I was on a ferry to France. It was only after I’d bought 200 cigarettes and a huge Toblerone that I realised I had a gig to do. It was a fun day, although I did wab out of wearing my eye-patch, I was the only one onboard not wearing one.
Went to see Sheffield band Little Man Tate at the Bar Academy. Their intro tape was ‘Sheriff Fatman’ and it made me feel a bit weird and to be honest, somewhat proud.
Still writing or trying to write some new songs. I’ve got at least one more album in me, which is reassuring. I thought I had writer’s block. But I just needed a nudge. So far the subject matter of these new songs is quite angry and occasionally libellous. Today’s ‘album’ working title is ‘Schadenfreude’.
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TRUTH IS MORE DEPRESSING THAN FICTION |
posted by jim on 9/08/06
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Some things you couldn’t make up.
At a time when nervous pessimists such as myself have the disturbing feeling that the world is on the brink of its third big war, I was surprised to switch on the TV to catch the US Secretary of State playing a grand piano at a big poncy concert. I then read that our Prime Minister was off to an urgent and important meeting with the American president, but only after Bush had finished his prior engagement, which was to meet the contestants from the TV talent show American Pop Idol. Incidentally, after his meeting with Bush, Tony Blairs jetted off for another meeting, this one was with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like I say, you’d be pushed to make it up.
To escape the madness I went to Devon to stay at my sister’s house while she was in Cornwall – it’s not only the Blairs who are the jetsetting family you know. While in Devon I’d do more walking than I ever do in London. On moors, by rivers, in the woods, along clifftops and across beaches, through the sea at lowish tide and up some extraordinarily steep hills. So much walking that I’d get blisters on my feet and have to remove my shoes, then I’d be walking down the road on the hot tarmac and I’d burn the soles of my feet so I couldn’t walk anymore. There must be a moral in there.
On the way home from Devon we went to the wedding of some old friends in Bath – the place not the big enamel thing with taps. The happy couple were from the world of show and at the wedding reception, aside from Jim Bob and Fruitbat from indie legends Carter The Unstoppable Sexy Machine, most of Goldie Looking Chain and The Darkness were there. Me and Mister Bat had our picture taken with The Darkness and the GLC entertained everyone on the Gladiator thing (that game where you hit each other with big padded sticks until one of you falls off your perch).
Also while in Devon I was part of a pub quiz team that would come a very close second behind an unbelievable show off of a winner – who I strongly suspect was cheating. The prize was only twenty quid but the show off winner made a big deal out of letting everyone know he was donating his winnings to charity, like he was M People winning the Mercury Music Prize. You must have noticed that I wasn’t nominated again this year. This is because you have to pay to get on the long shortlist and me and my record label don’t have that sort of dosh to fritter on such frippery. I hope Lilly Allen wins, here’s a nice picture of her. Maybe next year everyone will chip in and get my new album nominated. I’ve started writing songs, one’s called ‘Pizza Boy’ and another is called ‘The Carousel’. It sounds like a prize winner already doesn’t it.
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WHAT A BUMMER |
posted by jim on 22/07/06
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The big drawback for me with the summer in London is not the heat, it’s not the burned skin and the curly sweat hairstyle, the stink of the sacrificial burning of animals on garden grills or even the round the clock Big Brother. It’s the noise. The neighbours shouting at each other from one open windowed side of their house through to the other open windowed side. It’s the to and fro of the bouncing football outside my open window, as I wait for it to arrive over our fence and through our front room window, into my crunchy nut cornflakes. It’s the knock knock on the door from the twat from NTL, British Gas or Onetel . The knock on the door that you’ve got to answer because you've left the door open because of the heat, and along with all your open windows it means you can’t pretend you’re not in until the white shirted bullshitter pisses off and leaves you alone with your chosen phone company and electricity provider. It’s the impossibly loud bass woofers of the unwound windowed cars slowing down at the junction of the main road at the back of where I live. Surely sitting inside 500 horsepowers of throbbing steel disco is more of a threat to your driving skills than talking on a mobile phone or eating a Kit Kat. What do I know, I’m not Jeremy Clarkson. No, I’m James Morrison. One of many it seems, who’ve chosen similar career paths. The top 4 musical James Morrisons would probably be fatty from The Doors,then another large man who plays jazz trumpet, me of course and current flavour of the middle of the road month, James Morrison/ . Him with the “most gobsmacking, charismatic, rootsy soul voice (somewhere between Al Green and Otis Redding)…” Yes indeed, if somewhere between Al Green and Otis Redding is where you’d find James Blunt. I shouldn’t diss my family members and I suppose we must be related somehow or other, but every time I hear his name on the TV I flinch because they’ve just said my name. But it’s never me. And then like a fool I always think I better check him out in case he’s good, or better than me, instead of just younger, more successful and irritating. I wonder if anyone has ever bought a ticket to see him thinking it was me and didn’t realize, just thinking it was my new middle class white soul direction and that I’d aged fantastically well and had learned to play the guitar at last.
I had to try and write some songs for a thing I’ll tell you about soon and it’s spurred me on a bit to see if I can come up with something new for the September gigs as well. It would be nice to play some new material in amongst all the hits and best ofs. I wrote a song today, which I may play, it’s called ‘Another Day At The Office’, I hope to write and play more. I could end up with a whole gig of new songs, then people might turn up and think they’d come to see the other James Morrison by mistake. They’d think he’d aged suddenly with all the success and BBC coccaine and whores and had forgotten how to play the guitar.
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OIL |
posted by jim on 13/07/06
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I’ve been busy. Not proper build a house, asphalt a motorway busy. But busy. Aside from the odd gig here and there though, I can’t tell you much about it because it’s all stuff that’s still ‘in the pipeline’. And for fear of my pipeline drying up like it’s doing in the real world of oil and pipelines, I’m keeping my cards close to my chest. So I’ll just keep on mixing as many metaphors as I can and keep mum and perhaps schtum too. If I tell you what I’ve been up to it might curse what it is and it won’t come to fruition. So why did I even mention it? Because I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’d just been sitting around all summer in my own sweat, watching the World Cup and eating biscuits.
I have watched a fair bit of World Cup by the way. Being the indie Rod Stewart I’m technically Scottish but I haven’t been all anti English about my football supporting like that grumpy tennis dude. There’s no red and white flag on the front of my house or increasing the petrol intake of my car by fumfty per cent, but I was rooting for England anyway. On the subject of flags, when is the right time to take them down? At the end of the competition? When England were knocked out? It’s only my nimby snob’s opinion, and I know the flag’s been reclaimed etc but now the football’s over, the area where I live looks a bit like a BNP stronghold.
Anyway, I played a couple of gigs. One was a benefit in Bolton, which was superb. It was in a pub but the pub was more like a house really and the whole occasion felt more like a party than a gig. The kind of gig that if it was in a TV drama programme, people like me would say it was too unrealistic. ‘Gigs aren’t like that.” I’d say.
The other gig was at Blissfields Festival. The stage was made of grass. I didn’t play my usual heroic set. I didn’t have enough time onstage to build to a victorious finish and I had onstage sound difficulties that I won’t bore you with. But it was a lovely little festival, I was just a tad disappointed with myself.
I can probably tell you that I – along with the rest of Team Jim Bob – have appeared in a promo vid for the fine Sheffield band Little Man Tate. Look out for it on the TV. Mr Spoons is very convincing as a policeman. The kind of policeman that if he was in a TV drama programme, people like me would say he was too unrealistic. ‘Policemen aren’t like that.” I’d say.
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THERE'S A HERON ON MY ROOF |
posted by jim on 18/06/06
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One of the great things about being a father is Father’s Day. You get presents and a card and get to not feel guilty for bumming around on a Sunday with your hangover when you should be mowing the lawn or putting up shelves or something. The hangover is from last night’s Carter message board gig at the Windmill in old Amsterdam (Brixton). I didn’t drink that much but I’m a bit of a thimbleful lightweight nowadays and one pint of booze will do the trick quite well. For my set I managed to slip in a bit of My Way and also a bit of Heroes, which I thought was quite clever of me. Very Bono. Anyway, a great gig, I expect it turned a bit Sodom and Gomorrah
after I left, it looked like it was heading that way and I’m too old and borderline Cliff Richard for that.
Other things I’ve done recently was a gig in Nottingham which I enjoyed. Chris T-T was back for the day and it was as if we’d never stopped playing together. Rehearsals, reshmearsals.
Seeing as how it’s so sunny and hot and nice outdoors, I’ve been sitting inside typing on a hot computer, getting steadily more vitamin D deficient by the minute. I need to either do more or remember things I’ve done to justify this blog thing. I’m going to go and break my teeth on my American hard gums and Father’s Day Toblerone.
More soon.
Surely.
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HATS |
posted by jim on 4/06/06
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“I’m going to see my sister in Devon for the weekend, perhaps I’ll get my first of many swims in while I’m there. Yeah right.” Yeah wrong. I did go swimming. It was a small pool so I managed a few sort of lengths, getting cramp in my toes, something that’s happened to me whenever I’ve swam ever since I was a child. My toes twist around each other in a painful way. After the swim I treated my family to a flash slap up lunch of cheesy chips and watery mystery brand cola. Since my return to stinky London I admit I haven’t made it in the water for my second swim as yet. We live in hope.
Reviewed the Best New Acts (Mojo Awards)/ on Radio 6 on a Friday. I didn’t know some of the acts’ work I have to admit, but pretended I was more knowledgeable than I was by cracking woofers and being my usual man of the people hilarious self. After the show me and Marc my über manager met up with the rest of Team Jim Bob (Mr Spoons, off the wagon and pissed) to go see the reunion My Life Story gig, which was fantastic. MLS Singer Jake Shillingford open with caution looked like he was enjoying the chance to strut around the stage in a series of loud jackets and throw some impressive Vegas shapes. In the bar after the gig no less than five people spoke to me thinking I was Jake, including the keyboard player from My Life Story! I think that warranted an exclamation mark, I’m not a big fan of excamation marks usually.
While I was at the MLS reunion my daughter was across town watching Take That (no exclamation mark, strange) and she said it was the greatest gig ever. Note to self: All these reunions, don’t go getting any ideas.
Yesterday I played the Strawberry Fair festival in Cambridge. I didn’t realize how big it was. It was huuuuuuge. A very hot and sunny day and I started to get nervous before playing, that perhaps the audience might leave the tent while I was playing, not knowing who the hell I was, wondering why I was on stage with my terrible guitar playing and shouting. I love to be proved wrong and everyone stayed, in fact the crowd increased, the tent was proper packed, it was like the Arctic (my boys) Monkeys at Reading last year – I expect people will be saying that this morning.
Oh, and I wore a hat.
a bit like this one
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