Anyone who follows me on either Facebook or Twitter probably knows only too well that I'm suffering back problems this week. After looking just a few seconds too long in the bedroom mirror I recently came to realize that my previously non-existant gut has... well... come into existance. And much like myself, it likes to make an entrance. So, thanks to a mixture of bravado, pride and blind optimism I decided to head off to a body and soul workout thing. Long story short, overexert my rapidly decaying body and end up with a bad back.
So with that in mind, I head off to tonight's gig at The Jacob's Ladder with a certain degree of trepidation. I decide to dress myself up a little nicer than usual to compensate for the fact that I'm expecting to remain in a perpetual state of stillness all night. I rather ambitiously try to ignore the fact that my newly adopted belly is peeking out ever so slightly through my suit jacket and head off to Falmouth.
One of the benefits of being a decrepit old man trapped inside of an unfeasably youthful looking body is that, for one night only, I'm excused from the usual rigmarole of unpacking and setting up the gear. Instead I'm tasked with the much more enjoyable job of mingling and chatting to punters as everyone gets ready. This seems to go quite well for a while... until trouble arrives rather unceremoniously. Two drunks somehow find their way behind the microphone and burst into a rather... avant-garde, shall we say... rendition of Hit Me Baby, One More Time. There's a scuffle, followed by a forced exit... followed by an unscheduled encore, followed by the fire alarm getting set off as the drunks are ejected a second time.
Bye bye to half our audience, I can't help but think to myself. The fire alarm doesn't seem to know when to quit. Three times the door is opened and the alarm readies itself for another round. Still, eventually it was fixed... and you can't beat a bit of excitement, really, can you?
Speaking of excitement, tonight was the first night for both a couple of new tunes and for me to try out my new megaphone. It's scheduled to make five appearances according to my increasingly complicated setlist codes. Seriously, that thing's starting to look like a mathematic equation. I swiftly realize that I can only really use it comfortably twice. A lesson well learnt, though... two is just the right amount as it happens. And as far as I can tell, the songs go down quite well as well. Some slight teething problems with both, not least with my inability to remember the words, but the audience seem to like them, so a success on both counts, I suppose.
Set ends with more milling about and mingling. I get talking to some regulars. You know that feeling when you're chatting to someone who's so pretty you actually physically feel your IQ slipping down a couple of digits with every word you say? Well, about 40 points shed later, I appropriately go babbling and drooling into a crowd of well-wishers and potential co-conspirators. I have absolutely no idea what I'm saying but I think I do pretty well. Definitely gratifying to hear one bloke tell us that our version of Bonkers is the best he's heard. Fatigue's starting to kick in however and I really don't want to be vertical anymore, so when the final well-wisher, a slurring man with a broad, Irish accent comes to say his piece, I'm pretty much on auto-pilot.
He intimates that he liked our music, but that there was a particular aspect that he wasn't so keen on. I have absolutely no idea what that aspect was, but it definitely involved the word 'cheese.' Make of it what you will.
All in all a fantastic night, though. Even if I wish we could have played The Rules. I love playing The Jacob's Ladder and can't wait to go back for more.
Setlist 27/01/12:
Lillipad Lover
Inspector Katz
F**k You (cover)
Mr. Dinosaur
Herb the Taxi Driver
Goose in 4D
Love is in the Sole
Made With Love
Dayglow
A Miskito Called James
---
Hey Ya (cover)
Pirate (in my Heart)
Mary the Snowdeer, I Hate You
Quickstep
The Ballad of Marc Macnab
My Voice
D.U.I.
Chad
David Bryant Tried to Section and Kill Me
Too Late to Mate
---
Bonkers (cover)
