That was acoustic.

Progression, like the aging of skin and the dirtying of carpets, cannot often be noticed on a day to day basis. Sometimes you get caught off guard and take a real look and remember how clean your carpet was and how you never really noticed that it started becoming brown, or that your once youthful face now displays the years that it has weathered proudly and you finally, actually look your age and don't need to carry ID anymore. This band is like that. My housemate Jim came to our first ever handful of shows and can openly state that he has seen us at our very worst. He's seen us play twice as fast as we should do because we were nervous, he's seen us play too drunk, he's seen us play to no-one and has seen us fumble endless chords, choke a million notes and tell a hundred bad jokes. And he took photos of most of it. He's "that guy" that every group of friends has who always has the camera and always scores the amazing photos that really sum up an evening and I could get lost forever in his endless folders of photos remembering the awesome, not so awesome and odd nights we have shared over the last 10 years or so. But its this recent batch of photos he has posted that brought me back to the beginnings of our band. Our first few shows were mostly acoustic affairs, just 2 guitars, a melodica and a terrible clamminess that meant that whilst playing I remained motionless - terrified to move in case I forgot words or fell over. At some point, I did both. It's funny to look back and remember how tied up I used to get before shows, the nervous I had then are totally different to the nerves I have now (which I still get at every show). I remember on this one particular night I would have given anything not to play. The room was noisy and full of art-student types who were engrossed in their coffees and £3 bottles of beer and I felt like we had just rocked up out of no-where with our guitars and told them to shut up and listen to us shout through a PA. I honestly felt like we were intruding on their evening despite the fact that the venue had a poster on the wall that said "This is Acoustic" and had our name on it. We've been at similar shows since and my attitude these days is much more enthusiastic, but this one night I just wanted to get my bag and leave. Its rare that I would prefer not to play a show, out of all the shows we have done the number I would have happily bailed on could be counted across the fingers on my left hand. And even though we played fine that night and I remember feeling like despite my apprehension that we did as well as we could have expected, the biggest steps we have taken, I think, are that the nerves we had before that show that almost stopped me picking up my pick have been replaced with nerves that drive me to play and conquer them.

I look a lot older too (No ID needed anymore)