Well hello again my fellow Tempestuans (I’m
gonna make this stick if it kills me). It’s been a while since my last blogging
effort but I’ve been a bit tied up of late between work, decorating, recovering
from work and decorating and generally feeling a bit under the weather. Never
fear though, like the proverbial bad penny I’m back and clicking away at the
keyboard in a somewhat misguided attempt to bring you kicking and screaming
into the mindset of the rock legends that we are verily becoming (at least in
our befuddled heads if nowhere else).
Since we last spoke…………well, typed and read
I suppose…………..OK, at the very least I typed…………….we’ve had a few more gigs
under our belts. Duncan has already told you about what I lovingly refer to as
our world tour of the vicinity of Brentwood, where we did two gigs in two
nights. It was great to compare the two nights, as one was a completely unknown
crowd and the other was a regular venue. Both nights went down a storm, the
second for very different reasons to the first, but I won’t repeat what has
already been written about by others. You can look back and check it out
yourself. Even I can do that and I don’t have a clue when it comes down to this
tech stuff.
It has now been six months since our first
gig at The Essex Arms in March, almost to the very day in fact, and I’ve been
thinking back over what we have done during this time to see if I’m still
getting the buzz from doing it that I hoped I would. I’ve got the lyrics and
timings of 30-odd songs jammed into my head, with the prospect of another 6 new
ones ready to roll out next month (5 originals and 1 cover), and the ever
present self doubt about my ability to get them across to an audience in a way
that doesn’t embarrass us. I’ve turned 44 this year, a week before our first
gig in fact, and I’ve never done anything like this before (for details see
previous afore mentioned blogs). This singing lark doesn’t come easy to me,
unlike general playacting and fronting out, and I have to really work at it to
deliver the way I do. Now I know what you’re all thinking, you’re thinking “my word, if that’s what he sounds like after
working at it……………….” which could be considered a fair point of view. I am
my own worst critic and when I hear our stuff played back I always find fault
with what I do, and I suppose I always will, and when you are up there
strutting your stuff you can’t hear what you really come across like. I think
what I’m trying to get across is that we as a band are reliant on your support
and honest critique about our deliveries and I for one would encourage anyone
to let me now where they think I’m going wrong and take on board any advice
offered to correct it. If you like what we do, then great, by all means let us
know because we love being told how great we are, but we also need you to let
us know when things aren’t so good because we can’t fix what we don’t know’s
broke. As for the whole buzz thing, damn
right I’m enjoying it. When we are up there in the swing of doing what we do, I
love the energy that I get from performing to a crowd (or small-ish group
depending on you point of view) and it’s fantastic when they respond by dancing
and singing along to us. Then, the following day when my mind recaps on the
night’s events, I get the buzz again. I’m bloody loving it!!
I think I’ll always have that self-doubt
issue, but in my mind that’s a good thing. It’ll keep me grounded and make sure
I don’t get complaisant about what we are doing. I’ve been to gigs where the
artist relies on past glory to carry off a mediocre performance and I hate it.
The classic mistake of pointing the mic at the crown for them to sing your own
signature chorus is old, tired and in my opinion a liberty. I don’t want to get
to the point where I’m thinking that it’s just another show and coast through
it. If I ever got to that point, I’ll jack it in.
I’d like to finish off this little
onslaught of diatribe with a word or two of thanks. Firstly a word to Three
Birds Blind, Two Faced Serenade and Miss Alie for playing with us over the past
couple of months. It creates a bigger variety of music for our audience to
listen to and provides a great value for money night out.
Secondly, a shout out to all those who are
following us on the interweb, Facechat, Twatter etc. If you can come and see us
at some point, it would be great to meet you and have what I like to refer to as
a proper chat. For those that can’t, then we are hopefully making progress towards
getting our stuff on the site for you to download or listen to in the future.
Finally, a big thanks to everyone who still
come out to support us when we play and join us on our journey. When you are up
there on stage and see people you know walk through the door to see you
perform, it really does humble you. It’s even better when you see them stay until
the end of the show, because as we all know, loyalty only goes so far.
Anyway, that’s enough from me for one
sitting. I’ll catch up with you all again soon. Thanks for reading,
Nic
x
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