Day 78
Friday March 10, 2023
A little visit to The Old Red Lion in Angel tonight. It’s a great bar. What can I say? And the staff are starting to become just a little bit familiar to us and vice versa which I think is kinda cool.
Day 80
Sunday March 12
Just a great London walk today as we go from our eastern place all the way across central and on to St James’ Park then Hyde Park, taking in Buckingham Palace on the way. Then to take advantage of the great public transport here. As soon as we think we’ve walked about as far as we can, or want to, we just find a bus and ride it all the way back home.
Day 86
Saturday March 18
We take a walk out and Maja, mischievously, seems to have a destination and a plan in mind but she isn’t saying, although she does make sure we stop off to buy some notebooks. Our destination is Ye Grapes in Mayfair, a fantastic bar in a setting that seems totally apart from the rest of the city. Leaving the main road and coming into Mayfair is like wandering into an old style village. Another one of those times when you suddenly feel like you’re on holiday and a tourist in your own town. Yeah, London is doing that a lot to us. Once we’re sat in the generous March sun outside the bar, Maja gets the notebooks out and says, ‘We’re going to write now.’ Oh. OK. With that, we really do start. And for the next considerable while we take our time to write a whole page or lyrics each, at the same time, then when we’re both done, we read what we’ve written to each other. A quite brilliant Saturday bar activity and we complete three full pages each and yeah, we really might have some potential songs there.
We’ve timed things on our walk and been in touch with Per and Maja made sure to give us plenty of time to ourselves before we had company because she really wanted to follow through with that plan. It all connects almost perfectly as we finish our session, the sun goes in, we go in and then not too long after that we’re joined by Per and Saturday afternoon and evening just winds by comfortably on our own time.
Day 88
Monday March 20
Mark:
I told you there were discoveries to be made here. Maja calls me towards the end of the day and pulls me out with Andri, one of her colleagues. He says we’re going for a drink at a roof bar. We wonder where it could be. Well, just a few streets away from us and still very much in our immediate neighbourhood he turns a corner and declares that we’re here. A non-descript door set just a little way back with a discreet sign giving just a hint there may be a public business here. We’ve walked past here loads of times and never seen it. In we go and straight into a lift. Which rides up and opens onto a long, elegant restaurant/bar type setting. Which has large windows all the way along its right hand wall. And these windows look right across the cityscape. It’s past sundown and the lights of all the buildings form an incredible backdrop for our impromptu Monday evening.
Day 89
Tuesday March 21
Mark:
Zaid and Maja finally get to meet as we arrange a trip to his area of Clapham. It’s so great to see him and the energy’s high, taken to another level as the two of them hit it off massively and immediately as our table soon becomes a three person party. He’s been running live and original music events in London since the Britpop years and quite possibly before. How long before I’m not sure but he’s something of an institution and, hugely gregarious, known by just about everybody. To me, he seems happiest when creating a stage and a scene for the talent to come in and do their thing.
We’re going to be all round this town tonight with Zaid as our faithful guide to his home area. But before we head off, he has something for us. With some ceremony, he produces an envelope, removes the sheet of paper contained inside then opens it up on the table before us. This is a handwritten list of contacts he has made just for us. What a fantastic gesture and what a treasure. We carefully place it in our own bag, and yes, we will most definitely be working through it. Thankyou very much. Now to keep this party going and hit the town. We take it deep.
Day 90
Wednesday March 22
Maja’s off to Sweden. With that, we come to the beginning of the end of the beginning. As soon as she gets back, the beginning will have ended and we’ll be getting on it.
Soon after arriving at the airport, Maja sends me a photograph of the large backdrop in one of the souvenir shops. It contains two street scenes. One of a famous Camden Town landmark bridge, and one from Brick Lane of Shoreditch.
Day 97
Wednesday March 29
Maja was supposed to be away until sometime mid to late April but things have changed and she tells me she’s coming back this Tuesday, two weeks early. This also means she’ll have to return to Sweden in early May and stay there for much of that month, but it also means we’re now available to gig from Friday April 7. Finally, we’re on.
Day 101
Sunday April 2
A little Sunday day trip to the White Hart and Kristoff’s set aside some time in his busy weekend to talk to me to see what we can do about playing here. We quickly settle on Tuesday the 18th. So, first chat and first full London gig booked.
Day 103
Tuesday April 4
I have a few, I think, semi open people to try to visit today so I head out to see what I can make happen there. First stop is the Bridge Bar to try to meet Rico. The place is closed when I get there but I see Rico and a few people inside down at the end and give a little knock. Rico comes out and is quite generous with a smile as he ushers me in. I remind him of when he suggested we come and play here and he says yes, he remembers. Then, with a slight and dismissive air of weary doubt and cynicism, he says, ‘Can you show me anything of you guys?’ Yeah sure. This is the first time I’ve been asked this and I do stop to think what I’m going to show as I open up our Youtube channel. This doubt and decision making all flashes through my mind quite quickly as I know I have to jump on this immediately, and I settle on our medley video, which is this one.
Almost immediately Rico’s eyes widen and his voice, as of up to now so authoritative, quietens. ‘Oh,’ he says slowly. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’ I’ve run my own events, and had local original band submissions as a music journalist and worked with many people in considering new acts. I’ve even dabbled in the A&R world. his reaction is far beyond anything I’ve ever seen from anybody watching or listening to any new band. I stop the video and he looks up. His eyes are now wide and infused with a whole new, yes, excitement. ‘Come, come,’ he says. ‘You have to show the other guys this.’ So he leads me down the bar to his two companions, calling out ahead of us, ‘You guys, you have to see this. Show them. Show them.’ I do and they take it in with Rico’s infectious enthusiasm. Now he really begins. ‘It looks like you’re made of music,’ he says. ‘The guitar looks like it’s part of you. And the girl. She looks and sounds fantastic. You have a good speaker and microphone, yes? Because we will really want her voice to be heard properly in here. How do you get paid? What do you want from us?’ Then I tell him we want nothing but their space and the permission to do the hat. ‘Of course, of course. What a great idea,’ he continues. ‘You must make a lot of money.’ Well, yes, we have had a few nice results. ‘I don’t doubt it.’ Now he starts to think about when to get us in, saying he wants to have a nice crowd for us. The long, narrow bar isn’t quite right so he says, ‘I would like to put you outside. In the garden at the back.’ So he suggests we wait until the weather is reliable and consistently hot, and then I should come back. This is definitely a summer thing, he says. So maybe June. Yep. Come back in June. Brilliant. Yes, I leave that place absolutely buzzing to the best reaction I’ve ever had to a hustle even though it didn’t result in a solid booking. Oh, just wait until Maja hears about this.
With the winds of that encounter blowing in my sails, my tail is most definitely up as I head for Deli Theatre where I find Aneirin behind the bar. He also remembers me and our performance with some enthusiasm and as soon as I talk bookings and what we want to do, he’s there. No problem. When do we want to do it? But then he remembers a few things they have already on and suggests a date in mid May but Maja’s away for most of that month. So we settle on June. It’s far enough away so no set date and he says these kinds of things have to go through a few other people as well, but assures me we’ll get it done. So yeah. The same as Rico, leave it a while and then come back. And again, we’re looking at June. Great. Thankyou very much.
I’ve had two pretty good results there so I call time on the street hustle and head back home to start making calls to some of the numbers Zaid gave us the other night. One or two people aren’t in the game anymore and others aren’t answering right now, but a guy called Mike does. His event is Acoustify and it’s a series of open mics all over London. We have a brief chat and he’s warm and friendly and happy to hear from a friend of Zaid’s. He books his open mic slots so that they’re mostly organised ahead of time. What would you call that? I’ve seen this a little now and I’m not entirely sure but I do like the concept. I’ve been calling it curated open mic but even that doesn’t quite work because the open part of it still isn’t really there. It is more an extended lineup but try putting that on a poster. Anyway, he says he has an event this Sunday in Dalston, and another on Thursday in Fulham. He’s happy to put us down for both of them right now. Brilliant. Do you want me to send you something? ‘No need,’ he says. ‘You’re a friend of Zaid’s, he’s given you my number to get in touch, you’re in.’ Wow. Just like that. Fantastic. So now, when Maja gets back tonight I’ll be able to tell her, first about Rico. Oh, I have to tell her about Rico. Then yeah, that and Deli, so two solid leads for gigs in June, and then I’ll be saying we’re playing this Sunday and next Thursday. Oh, I’m sure you can imagine she already knows, but yeah, The White Hart is in the book too. And the venues for June. I think Maja’s going to be happy to come back to that. A nice little first evening back.
But…
Over in Sweden they’re having delays and not much information, and that which does come through is conflicting and confusing with the 11pm flight at one point pushed back to 1:30am. In any case, she’s going to be arriving hope sometime middle of the night. She finally gets home at 4:30am. She’s due to be back in the office at nine. Ouch.
Day 104
Wednesday April 5
We’ve both kind of been up all night and now Maja’s off to the office. For me, I’m off to my outside office as I’ve decided today is my first day out on the real hustle, visiting bars completely cold.
As usual with these things I wait until afternoon, hitting bars after lunch has been done and they have their lull before they pick up again early evening. I’m walking around our local areas of Shoreditch and Hoxton and I cover over five kilometres, quite a bit of it in a gentle but persistent rain. In the time I manage to visit ten bars, with one that I really wanted to pitch to being closed for a private party. Out of those ten, only three have managers there and available to talk to. Two seemed mildly interested left the door open for me to return sometime, while one manager was really kind and interested personally, and watched the video, but said we most definitely were not right for his venue. Looking at it from the outside, I thought we would have been, but when he tells me of the cool chill club vibe he’s going for, I agreed that yeah, we weren’t what he was looking for. It’s the nicest kind of rejection and we part with all good wishes.
Overall, I have to say it feels a bit like an empty, dispiriting hustle day, suitably mirrored by the gently consistent rain I’ve been slowly dampening in. But I have to keep reminding myself that no managers were around so there really isn’t anything I was able to do about it. All you can do is keep knocking on those doors. And besides, of the three I did speak to, two of them are still in play. So I guess that’s OK.
Then later the phone rings and it’s someone from Clara who saw us play at The Trap. The guy’s got my number and wants to book us for a children’s party. I’m not sure how, but he had no idea we’d moved to London and sounds disappointed as he says he was really looking forward to it and now wishes us all the best. Wow. You really just have to love that.
Day 106
Thursday April 7
A walk out to Hackney today, mainly because I want to check out a farm cafe we found and had tea and cake in a few weeks ago when on a walk out this way to check out Victoria Park. Really, just because we discovered it’s the closest park to us. And farm. No, we’re not thinking the big rolling hills and the cows of our immediate Ireland surroundings – oh I do miss that just a little. No. This is a city farm. A small patch of green, all very well fenced in in between a bunch of busy roads. They have a whole bunch of farmyard animals, a load of vegetable patches and, in the middle of all this, a charming very rustic feeling cafe. And we saw they advertised live music. I walk in today to see what that’s all about. I’m keenly met by Gianluca who says it’s once a week and they look to pay a certain amount for two 45 minute sets, or something like that. I tell him we’re not that kind of act so that won’t work for us, but why don’t I tell him what we do do. Go for it. This gets him thinking and he comes back with, ‘Would it work if we put together a bill of original acts based around you guys doing something?’ They would pay the same, so we could all share it out, and meals and drinks are in the offer too. Yep. Sounds good. He adds, ‘We’ve never done anything like that here, but yeah. Let’s do it. Let’s make it happen.’ Oh wow. It looks like I’ve just opened up a new London venue possibility for original acoustic acts. Like I said, you’ve just got to hit the street and keep knocking on doors. So many people will knock you back, but eventually you will meet a Gianluca. Then once you’ve done that, knock on a whole load more until you find another one. Sing and repeat. He says he’ll try to put a bill together himself, but if I have anyone I know who could be interested, he’d appreciate it if I could send them his way. Of course. We set a provisional date of June 1.
I reach Hackney and hit a few bars, but either managers aren’t in or I decide they’re already a little too busy to hit. I also find at least one lovely venue run by lovely people which is just a bit too small. A shame. I was expecting more out of Hackney. I must be looking in the wrong places. It’s raining now anyway, and starting to get more insistent, so time to go home. Well at least I got Hackney Farm, and one result per hustle is a perfectly acceptable strike rate as far as I’m concerned. Hey, if you can go out with nothing and get back home and you’ve got a gig, that has to be cool, right? I’m doing a fast walk for a bus that I don’t quite have to run to catch but I do have to, er, hustle, when I suddenly see a large industrial fence under the bridge I’m passing through and there’s a sign on it advertising a venue somewhere on the other side of it. Oh. I ignore the bus, and the by now quite heavy rain, and take a few hesitant steps into what looks like a large, long, industrial yard next to higher up railway tracks. Oh again. I now see what it is. Stretching far into the distance are railway arches. Inside six or seven of them is a variety of bars and nightclubs. How cool is this? It’s back on. I walk along what is probably wrong to call a promenade, but what are you going to do? Searching for possibilities, I see they’re all too busy to approach right now so I keep going. When I get to the end, I discover there’s even more if I take a turn to the right and go round the back of this thing. Talk about being off the beaten track. Next to the track. Back there I find a yard type area. No other way to describe it. A few benches over the other side. And in the middle, a lorry/shipping container. Yep. One of those corrugated looking things. It’s had the top half of one side knocked out and the whole thing’s been turned into a bar. Not a bar you go in and sit down and drink in. I mean the part the people serving you stand behind. Kind of where I used to do a lot of standing behind only way cooler. Actually yes, make that properly cooler because it’s freezing right now. And raining. So it’s handy that this thing has some kind of awning covering out front. I go and say hi to the guy running it and, as I usually do, ask if he’s the manager. He is. Right. One little thing. Whenever I go into a bar, the very first person I encounter, no matter how young looking they appear to be, I ask if they’re the manager. Because you just never know. This guy isn’t at all young looking, I just thought this was as good a time as any to make that point; in about a million and a half words of writing in these Diary things – yep, that truly is about right – I’ve never made that point before.
I make my pitch and he goes into consider mode before saying, ‘We’ve never had music here before, but I don’t see why not.’ I ask if he’d like to see a little of the video I have cued and he says, ‘I’m on the phone right now.’ He is. I just hadn’t noticed. He’d very generously taken the little amount of time he was on hold to talk to me. No worries. I step back and let him get on with his call, as I can see it’s proceeding again now. I wait. And wait. And get wetter. And wetter. Yes, he does have that canopy/ awning thing but I think it would be polite to not be hovering in earshot of his phone call. I think this goes on for about 20 minutes but all the time I’m like, that’s OK, I’m about to have a chat entrepreneurial hustler to entrepreneurial hustler. A meeting of the minds between two guys who just get out there, take the knocks, and try to make things happen. He hangs up and I approach the bar again. He looks up as though he’s never seen me before. Fair enough. I had my phone out and was scrolling through stuff. ‘Oh, sorry,’ I say. I was just trying to call up my diary. I was. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I’m not going to be booking anything now. I’ve got your card. I’ll have a look and give you a call if I’m interested.’ Oh. Again. And that’s that. To be totally fair, in any scheme of things, he’s done nothing wrong. But I can’t help but feel just a little led on. And in this weather too. Not impressed. Maybe he’ll get back, maybe he won’t. There are plenty of other places to hustle. If I’m round these parts again, I may drop in and say hi and see where he is with it, but…You know, no buts. I don’t think I’m going to do the incessant bar chasing again. Not like I did with The Insiders where I’d hammer and hammer at the tiniest possibility of an opening. If a door’s properly left open and I really think a dialogue has opened – see Rico, I will be – then yeah. But this? Maybe it’s cos I’m soggy and getting soggier and it’s partly his fault, but yeah, I do feel led up and let down.
Day 107
Saturday April 8
We find ourselves in Kentish Town today sometime after eight as we’re getting together for a little with my friend Cris who I used to live with in the Carrol. Before that we got to know each other from the jam scene, then I played with his heavy metal band The Wild Child, including gigs in Italy, then I worked for him on his building sites when I took a hiatus from pub world as my gigging and rehearsing diary was starting to get too busy to fit around an evening job. Of course Maja knows him well too, and it’s a lovely hang.
The route is a tube to Ktown then a walk up to his place, what used to also be our place, and before that, my place. For six years. The last time we were here, we were dismayed when we went to check out The Oxford and discovered it had closed down, or at least looked like it had. It all appeared desolate, sad, and broken. This is the bar I worked at full full full time for my first year in London. Oh, it felt like I was living in the place at times. Customers just to actually jokingly ask if I did because they started to feel like I was never not there. I grew to love the place, got to know all the regulars and count some of them as friends, and continued to go there as a regular myself after leaving. So it’s a massive part of my own London fabric. We’re really keen to just swing by tonight to see if it’s still closed, or if it’s managed to open again and if so, how it’s doing.
We walk in through the side door – on Islip Street if you care to check it out – and a guy sitting at a high table facing the door smiles at us. Then he leaves his seat and walks around the table to walk towards us. It appears they take their greetings seriously round here. ‘Mark, isn’t it?’ he asks. ‘Er…yes.’ ‘Hi Mark.’ And he gives me a good solid handshake. I can’t style my way out of this one. ‘I’m really sorry. Do I know you? It looks like I should.’ ‘We met at the 100 hour jam,’ he says. ‘You were the guy who did the whole thing.’ Oh. Wow. ‘It’s Steve,’ he continues. I tell him again I’m really sorry but I don’t remember. He adds that it was quite deep in and things may well have been a bit blurry for me around then. I’ll say now that just after we leave, I have a Doh! moment when I suddenly do remember. And yes, I also remember it being significant at the time as I was told that Steve, one of the actual owners of the Blues Kitchen, was in the house and I was taken over specifically to be introduced to him. We have a little bit of a chat now and I ask him what the story is with this place now. Oh, it’s called The Parakeet now by the way. We did see that on the way in, I just forgot to tell you. Well, Steve is the new owner and it only recently opened and he says it’s going very well. It certainly is. It’s packed right now, all the way through to the end of what used to be the restaurant. And I tell him how, madly coincidentally, I used to work here. No, practically live here. Now the owners of The Blues Kitchen, the place I made my second home in London, if The Oxford was actually my first home, own this place. While we’re chatting, and while I have the opportunity, I tell him what we’re doing, give him a card, and pitch about what we’re looking to do. Would that be something he would be open to? He gives me his own card and writes someone else’s email on it. ‘Email this guy,’ he says, and gives me a card for the overall company, The Columbo Group. Apart from this new bar The Parakeet, the also owns a whole load of iconic London places including The Blues Kitchens, and Camden’s Jazz Cafe, while also running a few prestigious festivals. Now I have to ask, and I go cautious because it could come out sounding all wrong. ‘I know I can’t really use your name when contacting him because we really don’t know each other, but would he somehow know where I’m coming from or … who I am?’ That who I am sounds all wrong and I should tell you I’m very halting and hesitant when saying it. I’m really just wondering if, having been given this contact by one of the very owners of the group, there’s some way my email would be properly seen and considered. ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ says Steve. ‘He’ll know. You’re a legend within the company for what you did at the 100 hours jam. Everyone knows who you are.’ Oh wow. If there’s ever a time you want your girlfriend at your side to hear someone talking about you to you. And yes, she heard it.
Oh, and I’m assuming knowledge here. What was the 100 hours jam and what exactly did I do at it?
What it was:
Well, it happened in June 2019 at The Blues Kitchen and was the longest non-stop open jam ever. Hundreds of musicians took part from June 9 to June 13 with the criteria being that the music on stage did not stop. So musicians would swap in and out one at a time.
What I did:
I was the only person there for the whole 100 hours and I was on stage for a total of over 24 hours. I started this thing with an unbroken awake period of 66 hours – no. No drugs at all. There are people to this day who still don’t believe it but it’s true. After that first period, I slept for six hours in a room which was specially provided for me upstairs. Immediately after that I was on stage for another two hours. I had two more sleeps before the conclusion – naps really; one of two hours and one of one hour. So for the 100 hours, I slept for a total of nine hours. And at the end I was invited on stage to play in the finale as the clock counted down to zero.
For my account of the whole thing, you can go here.
And for verification, there’s this:
https://www.worldrecordsofmusic.com/open-jams
And there are these quite wonderful videos.
Day 108
Sunday April 9
OK, we did Dial Up. A month ago to the day. March 9. But with that only having two real punters in attendance, and possibly even only one by the time we started, I think we’re really starting today and I’m seeing this as our first real London performance, although you could validly say it was Dial Up. But in any case, this is where we’re really beginning as The Diaries are officially open for business now in a way in which we weren’t on March 9. I feel we’re more among a London crowd here tonight as well, in Copper Cats, Dalston. This, I think, is where we’re going to be tested by fire for the first time. The first time our impression of ourselves makes contact with reality in London. How will we really measure up? For myself, I’m not nervous as such, just filled with adrenaline and absolutely raring to go as we pitch ourselves in this environment of people who have seen, and continue to see, all the best up and comers. Although it might be a friendly audience of singer/songwriters and people who want to see such shows, it takes a lot to impress, especially as these people know how it’s done. I think singer/songwriters are by far the friendlier crowd as a general group, but I do still often see this as comedians performing in front of comedians. Many of them are almost famously competitive and reluctant to laugh at other people’s jokes. So yeah, I want to absolutely hit the ground running in here, smash it and overwhelm. Nervous? No. But I do feel a strange kind of pressure to prove ourselves at what I see as a different level to what we’ve ever played before. We’re in London. We’re in the real arena now. This is where it really begins.
Into the venue and we’re told who Mike is and he comes to greet us very warmly after having chatted on the phone a few times. ‘And you’re Maja,’ he says, seeing our rockstar for the first time.
After that, we settle in, enjoy the show, and wait to be called. Just as I suspected, some of the songs on display are truly fantastic, if a little more on the downbeat side. There’s a keyboard singer/songwriter who comes on and warns us to be ready for a few depressing songs, adding that he has a few about heartbreak. Not exactly what you want to be prepped for when you’re waiting to be entertained. But entertain he really does. I just wish he hadn’t made such a low hearted intro. It kind of rolled the energy out of his prospective audience. You want them to be up for you, surely, not put down by you. However, he plays and sings with such passion and power that I’m won over and I think he gets pretty much everyone else as well, although Maja says, ‘Imagine having to sing lyrics like that all the time.’ Fair enough, but there is a big market for it.
A few more acts and it’s our turn and we give Mike our wireless connections for the sound desk. Again tonight, we’re doing our thing of letting other people choose our songs from a secret pile of 10. We’re confident that every one of them will smash. Well, let’s see. The first one picked out is My Game, My Rules. Maja seizes upon the moment to introduce us and the song, saying, ‘This is my game, and this is my rules.’ It begins with a fast, heavy metal influenced guitar riff. I am so wound up to get started. Pulled taut like a catapult. Now I get to feel my release. It comes hard. Way too hard. Oh man we are fast but, caught up in the moment and filled with adrenaline and suddenly released onto the playing field after straining at leashes to get out there, I don’t feel it. What I do feel is that somehow the guitar now feels really hard to play and my rhythms just aren’t quite there. This is because I’m kind of unaware that I’m playing so fast I’m not able to be fully in control. But we’re still doing it, although Maja is really caught up in this too and, together and separately, we roam the room with domination. Many of our songs are already designed to be fast smashers, and this is one of them. To ramp it up so much is to go deep into the red zone. That’s where we are now and Maja can barely keep up. So much so that words get lost to the extent that the entire second verse ends up being a rerun of the first. By any measure, we are really making a mess of this but the train is already at full momentum rolling down the hill and there’s no way to stop it or slow it down. That’s the really weird thing sometimes. It’s often far easier to speed a song up than to slow it down. Especially when the guitarist doesn’t really feel things are going too fast, but they undoubtedly are. But somehow, it really doesn’t matter. The audience before us is swept away by the energy and electricity of our performance as we ignore and smash through all self placed obstacles and just continue to storm the thing as though everything is just as it should be. I guess that’s what two European tours and almost a hundred shows does to you. You’re just conditioned to carry on no matter what. When we finish, the reaction is loud and very enthusiastic. And maybe a little shocked. Wow. We’re in. I think we kinda got away with it. Let’s go again. The next song pulled out is Make Me Shine. Seriously? This is even more intense than My Game My Rules, and yes, once again we launch into it far too quickly, or rather, I do. Unfortunate because this song has rapid almost rap like verses. Which Maja is of course singing in a second language. Again, this song, performed as it should be, is already fast enough. Right now it is not being performed as it should be and, as with the previous song, Maja once again gets caught up in the lyrics. But once again, she gets away with it, although it must be clear we’re having some frantic levels of communication going on. But again, it fully lands and the shouts go up as we smash into the end of the song and stand there breathing heavily at the exertion this performance is demanding of us. We are playing fast and in this thinly scattered audience of about 15 people, we really are giving everything. As the next song is being picked, Mike calls out, ‘Could you perform this one with a bit more energy please?’ The laughter in the room is immediate. He is clearly enjoying himself and that is so good and encouraging to see.
Now we’re informed that our last song is to be How You RocknRoll. After the last two this feels almost tame, and I’ve finally caught myself and lead off with something at least resembling the pace of how this is supposed to be played. And, with the more assured performance we slip into this time, it really shows, especially when we come to the a capella part and I go into audience clapping mode and they completely come along with us. Yes, I think we’ve done something here. As we finish and the applause rings out, I walk across the floor to our seats and say out loud, ‘We’re in London now.’
At our table, one of the performers looks over to us with a massive smile and says, ‘That wasn’t a show, that was a workout.’ Yes, it was. When it’s all over a few performances later, someone else comes up to us and asks where we’re playing next. When we tell him it’s with Mike again, in Bishops in Fulham on Thursday, he says, ‘You guys are going to blow up there.’
Now it’s time to leave and we decide to walk home rather than get the bus like we did on the way down here. It’s a fantastic evening walk with Shoreditch at the end of this straight road. As such, the whole way, we are walking towards the bright city skyscape. In the context of what we’ve done tonight, more than any other walk towards those iconic buildings, this feels epic.
Day 111
Wednesday April 12
We’ve just had the four day Easter weekend so I think bar managers will be even more elusive this week than they usually are, so probably best to leave the hustle trail for a few days. And by the time they are out in the open again, it will be weekend preparations again, so I’ll probably be leaving the hustling alone this week.
