Fly FM.

Practice the other night with PJ and Joe was awesome. We’ve been practicing our set rather than learning songs and it all came together and sounded awesome, so if everything goes to plan on Monday, we should play ok. I don’t now why that needed to be said, if we play bad now then I blame myself for over-hyping and jinxing us. Fuck.

Yesterday we did a live set and interview on Fly FM radio in Nottingham which was our first experience of that side of things. It was an odd experience. I practice guitar sitting down most days, but I only ever really play and sing standing up, with everything loud and destroying my higher frequency hearing (must buy earplugs), pouring sweat into the F hole on my Telecaster. That’s my comfort zone. Acoustic house shows are pretty much the same, except I’m usually drunk and I can never really hear myself over the noise in the room or shouting along. I like that. I’d imagine a lot of people who play in bands like the relative anonymity of being on a stage, hiding behind the noise, separated onto a stage. The thought of a live, acoustic, sit down performance was a million miles from my usual band experiences and I was, to be honest, terrified. I can’t put my finger on what I was nervous about though, my voice these days holds up ok since I started focusing more on my breathing and control and I have played these songs literally thousands of times. Was I afraid I would fumble chords and words? Nerves can do pretty terrible things to your concentration and tension, but we managed to play everything pretty much as we did in practice. A win, I think. We did an interview as well which was completely unplanned and the usual level of spaffing occurred. I’d love to have sat about and talked more shit as opposed to mostly playing our songs. Mp3s of it all are coming soon.

After the radio thing we blasted straight to a gig in Loughborough which had already got well underway by the time we got there. It was a ska night but I think we went down ok; it’s hard to tell, I think most people were pretty drunk but it was good fun. It was about then that I realized for the last year or so, I have spent tons of my Friday nights relatively or completely sober lugging gear back and forth from the car either side of playing a show to play to people that are getting buck-wild because it’s the weekend. It probably seems like a strange way to spend a Friday night, leaving the venue and driving home till 2am instead of getting loose with your friends in a pub or club somewhere and pouring back into your house with a nights worth of funny photos and stories to share. I guess it is, especially when you consider that some of those shows are epic fails in terms of attendance or getting paid. I was going to try to say something positive to wrap this section up, but the truth is, sometimes it’s draining. Sometimes though, it’s fucking amazing and I’d happily spend everyday in those moments.