Posts

Breakfast

We were playing a bar, the name of which has now been lost in the hazy, whisky-soaked memories of the Scottish tours. We'd learned a few things on our various jaunts to the highlands, one of which was that the first person to offer to buy the band a drink was always the craziest person in the room, and to be avoided at all costs.  We were greeted in the afternoon by a giant of a man in a Rangers shirt. As soon as he saw the guitars on our backs he immediately went to the bar and returned with a whisky each. Well, it'd have been rude not to, so we downed them in as short a time as we could, not wanting to appear impolite. When we started setting kit up, he disappeared.  By the time we went on, the bar was absolutely rammed and the stage felt unstable, but as usual in those days, we were too far into the whisky to care. We were loving it, and the audience were doing that sort of dancing that borders on unarmed combat. The bar staff looked very young, lots of those pubs are staffe

Three Conversations

Just a quickie, I've got a proper post on the boil. I've had a good crop of conversations with very drunken women in the last few weeks.  Very Drunken Woman: Were you looking at me? Me: No, I wasn't.  VDW: why not?! I'm the BEST PERSON IN HERE! M: Cushty --------------- VDW: Can I touch your arse?  M: No.  VDW: Do you want to touch my arse?  M: No.  VDW: (visibly perplexed) why not? M: I just don't want to.  VDW: *look of utter disbelief * ---------------- VDW: Can I get up and sing with you? M: No VDW: Why not? M: Well, I'm singing, that's my job. It's live music in a restaurant, it's not a joining-in kind of thing.  VDW: But I've spent a fortune in here tonight! M: Cushty VDW:  So can I sing with you.  M: No VDW: But... well... but.... my friend's husband has just died! M: *Genuinely Speechless* ----------------- S

Coleen Nolan's Rabbit

The room dynamic of any show is something that's understood by punters the world over. Madison Square Garden, The Albert Hall, The Dog & Duck, The School Nativity Play, it's always the same. The performers are there to entertain, the audience are there to appreciate. Them's the rules, and it's the way it works. Even in the heckler-heavy world of standup comedy, it's understood that the loudmouth in the crowd is definitely not going to be more engaging than the act, he's fodder for acid put-downs and barbed responses. The thing is, nobody had told the happily sozzled older gentleman in the slightly too-big suit in Bob Trollop's one rainy Tuesday night on Newcastle Quayside circa 2009.  I was playing with Dan Walsh, early in his career which currently sees him as one of the best folk musicians in the world. We were doing quite well with our usual mix of rock n roll standards, folked up pop tunes and silly banter when, in a moment of silence between tun