People are nice and the world is fun. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll go into a little further detail as to how I came to that conclusion. Yesterday I played my London show at Nambucca. Although everything was right on paper: The venue was great, the sound was fantastic, I felt a little unhappy and a bit stressed. Not with anything in particular, but I just felt the grind and the competitiveness and the offhandedness that is London.
One by one, people came and took all my stress away. Yesterday I had a chance to catch up with the usual suspects as well as with those whom I haven’t seen in ages. So, what I enjoyed most about the show was all of you. Some of you have accompanied me in my musical endeavours for over three years now and I can’t tell you how touched I am by your ongoing support. It made my day and made the show for me. I hope you enjoyed the new songs, the drums and the distorted acoustic! Thank you very much to all of you for joining me yesterday and a special thanks goes to Chris and Alicja for your loyalty and for being lovely, to Nicholas Blake, who not only takes amazing live picture but also presented me with a copy of “Ten Stories About Smoking” (which I’m about to read now!) and to Roger for rearranging his entire gig schedule for the night to see my show (and if you know Roger, you’ll know what an honour that is!) – thank you! Ooh, I should also thank James from Washington DC for coming down to check out the show (it was great to meet you!) and to the other James for filming the show.
The world is fuelled by serendipity. I came home tired, but much happier at around midnight to find an email in my inbox from JayMay. This, is super cool even if you might not know why: I stumbled across her music about a year ago and fell in love with it. A few weeks ago I’d sent her an email to ask whether I might be able to support her when she tours Europe next. This was a long shot and I must have been in a good mood at the time. I honestly did not think I’d get a reply. And yet, in my inbox was a really sweet reply from her including a personalized list of New York venues for me to contact for my next trip. There, people are nice and the world is fun.
What have I learnt apart from that? Holloway Road is long and one can ever have enough spare plectrums.
In a couple of hours I’ll arrive in Norwich. First stop is the BBC Norfolk for a live session and interview, then off to the Bicycle Shop for show number three!
It’s great to see you tenaciously happy with a little help from your people. It’s natural to feel a bit low sometimes… you don’t have to keep the fire alive always by yourself.
JayMay’s story reminded me of the shot I took at Regina through one of her cello players… you got luckier this time! It’s a crazy thing to try – never stop yourself from sending that kind of e-mails though, no matter how big you feel the addressee is, the little chances of getting a response you think you have… the chances are 0 when you don’t give it a shot. It’s a bummer if they don’t get back at you but dissuading yourself is failing without even trying. You taught me that. You replied 🙂
Have a fabulous tour!