Monday 18 August, 2003

Just picking up the pieces from a pretty heavy weekend. The highlight,
albeit a slightly blurred highlight, had to be Saturdays Unplugged &
Intimate 'all dayer' in the grounds of South Hill Park Arts Centre.

Once again Haydn Wood, the promoter, excelled himself with a well organized
day & an eclectic bunch of artistes (..as he continually referred to us!!)
which, somehow managed to keep the kids interested throughout in the heat &
satisfied both the musos & fans. It is also worthy to note that the system
there was great outdoors. Very crisp, hats off to Sound girl Sarah.

The acts that stood out for me were Amrit Sond, an incredible musician with
an almost indescribable guitar style (..which he certainly did not get from
'Russ Shipton's Complete Guitar Player'!) It involved keeping the beat with
his hands on the body of the instrument while maintaining a rhythm/ lead
style reminiscent of sitar genius Ravi Shankar. Also, a girl called Lisa
Fitzgibbon who played the set before us was very good. She had strong songs
which held the interest of a crowd who could be forgiven for being singer/
songwritered out at that stage of proceedings.

Case Hardin got an opportunity to strut her stuff just after 7.00pm. The sun
was still beating down & as I approached the stage a suitably refreshed
punter accosted me & told me that his gut feeling was that the crowd were
ready to rock! I promised him I would see what I could do.

I started things off with 'Oil & Rain', having bottled the opportunity to
air a song I had finished earlier that day called 'Tilt- A- Whirl' (sorry
Debs). Del, resplendent in his canvas Stetson & shades joined me for a
mandolin led 'Gin Clear' before the outfit was completed by Andy & new boy
Cadge, standing in for Paul on bass.

We did a set of all the usual favourites that seemed to go down really well.
We played it about as hard as the acoustic format would allow & had a great
time. The crowd feed back was encouraging afterwards & while the unplugged
thing is not something we would want to do all the time, we continually have
a great time when we do it.

During 'Film the Sky', an over enthusiastic air guitarist was spotted
getting so carried away with Del's solo that he fell backwards off of a wall
& was not seen for nearly ten seconds before dusting himself off, sitting
back down & doing the exact same thing during 'Paper the Cracks'!!

Cadge too appeared to enjoy himself. He did not exhibit his pleasure in such
an extreme manner, but on the occasions when I turned around to look at him
he had defiantly lost the look of abject fear that he had been wearing all
day up until that point.

A big thanks once again to all those who came & supported us.

Well that's all the news that is fit to print. Keep an eye out for all our
up- coming gigs during the rest of this month.

Neil Young & Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have new records coming out this
week well worth looking into & I am off to Reading Festival at the weekend.

Pete