I played support for Milan Jay this very evening, and a good show it was. MJ's E.P is great stuff altogether. My set was only slightly shambolic; I managed to almost completely undo all my hard work setting up lights by knocking them all over, and pressed some of the wrong buttons and hit some of the wrong strings and that but this is it, and that it was.
"ok thank you that would be great i haven't done it yet ptttttttthhhhhhhhhhh" is bound to be the big Christmas catchphrase.
As a venue, Richardson's is a bit of an odd one.
It snowed! Yesssss. NOT PICTURED: any snow.
I headed off in search of food after soundchecking, and instead found Kevin Blake and Laura Sheeran at Nun's Island theatre; they were supporting Tenpastseven but I had to leave towards the end of Laura's set to go back up to Richardson's, navigating the frosty streets and play my set...
At one point I noticed at least three other guys taking pictures, so I started feeling like a creep and put the camera away. The gig was great, an improvement even over last weeks' at Citóg, fuller and more intense.
Back up to Eyre Square.
It was cooold. Or, as Paul O'Reilly would say, it wasn't.
I did a thing I've been meaning to do properly for ages; self-portraits while playing a gig. I set the camera up on a delayed shutter in the back on top of a speaker and had the remote control taped to the desk beside a keyboard. I'm not sure if I'll do it again, it does take away from the music a bit, but I like following soundman Ben's journey around the frame in the background.
The last two are the beginning of the frenzy that is Getting My Shit Off the Stage to Make Way for the Headline Act. I can't wait to play a headline set, if only so I can take my time packing up to some extent.
A couple of beautiful Paul O'Reilly self-portraits:
Gap.
The sight that greeted me at the top of the stairs at home:
