Day 255

March 19

Back at The Ramshackle Collective at Ten To One in Tottenham. Tomorrow Maja has to go back to Sweden for a few weeks. She possibly should have gone just a little earlier, but she really wanted to play here tonight, so the trip got put off until tomorrow morning.

Ten To One tends to close soon after the Ramshackle Night so to be able to properly meet some people and enjoy the hang as well as the show, it’s better to get in early. And just good to be around for the whole thing, we think. So nice and early tonight and, oh wow. The first thing we see when we walk in is that the place now has a stage. We can’t help but go straight up and stand on it and take in this new perspective. Ant looks up and says, ‘Yeah. We’re a proper music venue now.’ He really is trying to build something here. And with original music venues and venues in general closing down all over London and the UK, to see the trend reversed anywhere, and to see one opening up is priceless. I could say something similar about Tommy at The Marquis. And there’s a solid link between the two here tonight. This stage was put together between last week and this by Ant and Tom McQ, who regularly plays The Marquis. He’s here tonight and we go and catch up with him and Ant now. Between them, we hear of their own event going on in Walthamstow a week Saturday where Tom will be playing a full few sets of his own, and this time all originals. Before his show, and in between, Ant will be DJing. So a chance to see both of them fully doing their thing. Every other show I’ve seen Tom do he’s been in a situation where covers are kind of the thing, although it’s fine to throw some originals in. This will be a different evening so expect all originals. Brilliant. And Ant says that within his DJ sets he’s intending to play more and more original recorded music from upcoming bands. So that’s quite a few new stages, literally, being created in London as stages everywhere are being torn down.

Tom’s not playing here tonight. As a result I think I’m going to claim that tonight, the stage is ours. We don’t finish the show as we have the past two times, but it damn well feels like we do. Host Den has been at a comedy workshop and a bunch of the participants have come down here with her tonight. From here they have to get home to various parts of London and so won’t be staying too late. Den is really keen for them to see us, so asks if we don’t mind going on far earlier than the past few times. Really, we’ll go on when the host wants us to go on. We certainly aren’t taking closing the show for granted. But with the room being more full than we’ve yet seen it, and with so many of the people in it set to leave within the next half hour or so, we really do get the best spot of the night and it certainly feels like a closing set.

Fittingly, although we could have easily changed things around if needed, we’re planning to play two of our heaviest songs tonight with Nobody Said and Give Me The World. In between we’re playing one of those swayers I was talking about last week – Without A Gloria.

Tonight feels like a big show. It’s an open mic night, but our section of it feels like an event. I’ve seen few open mic acts ever get such a reception, and even fewer turn their, er, turn, into an event. It starts even before we begin due to a mistake as I forget to bring Maja’s mic to the stage when I bring my guitar from the back room. She saw me go out back and in all fairness assumed I would just bring the microphone as well. So there we are both on stage and all of a sudden we’re facing an expectant audience. Oh sorry Maja. I forgot your thing. So we have to leave everyone standing there while she goes through the audience to get it. As she starts to return, Ant decides to lead everyone in a steady insistent hand clap which accompanies her all the way back to the stage. With this, by the time she arrives, we are facing a very expectant room. Then she does something I’ve never seen her do before, insisting we’re not starting not beginning until the audience has closed up and moved up and in front of us at the stage. And so they do. From there, we have the room. Totally. And so it is that we get to close the first of the three of tonight’s sections. Brilliant. Job done, we can just go and chill out now and enjoy the rest of the evening. We’ve done our bit now.

Day 266

Saturday March 30

With Maja being in Sweden, I go to Tom’s thing on my own. I did mention it to a friend or two but no-one was able to make it, so here I am. This is happening at the Free Trade Hall in Walthamstow, an area a little further out in zone three, east London.

Ant’s DJ-ing before, in between sets, and after the show, with Tom playing on and off for the whole evening, and playing only his own original material, which is something I’ve not seen him do before. It’s great he’s created his own platform for this. Attendancewise, it looks pretty much full. Like comfortably full for a nightclub vibe. Which is really what it feels like. Ant’s playing all feel good, up tempo danceable songs, staying very much within pop and rock. A good chunk of 80s and 90s in there. And all around you can see people introducing themselves to each other with the room really feeling like something of a community. The kind of all in it together nightclub vibe I haven’t experienced since I don’t know how long, although to be fair, it’s also a long time since I’ve been to an actual nightclub, bars and live music venues having been more my thing since I don’t know when. I mingle a little and chat a bit with this person and that person, or have a quick interaction here and there. A hello to Ant. A quick word in passing with Tom. It’s just a really great night and a wonderful combination of DJ and live.