........
Tour diary of a solo acoustitician
Well, here I am, sitting in a dorm-room
in a little backpackers in St Kilda, Melbourne, two days into my
first ever east coast tour of Australia and wondering why on earth I
forgot to pack any shower gel, contact-lense solution or underpants. It's
these little details that remind you that, yes, whilst you are living
the dream my man, reality and all it's smelly little intrusions still
have to be dealt with on an annoyingly regular basis.
I've played two shows so far on the
tour. The first night in St Kilda was a little bit of an anti-climax
to be honest; there was about 10 people there, 50% of whom were me, 2
Irish guys I'd met at the backpackers and my management team. I was pretty
knackered and didn't play the best.
The day had started ominously. I
got to the airport and handed over the booking details and the
slightly camp attendant furrowed his immaculately waxed eyebrows
before telling me that the flights were actually booked for Melb to
Sydney and not Sydney to Melbourne, which was the direction I was
going. Bugger. That'll be $240 to change that please.
Last night was a lot better. Was
supporting a band called 'Me and the grownups' at Manchester Lane in
the Melbourne CBD. I didn't turn up for sound-check which isn't
really that unusual when you're just playing acoustic guitar and
singing, however, this seemed to incur the ire of the headliners who
were panicing that I wouldn't show but, bless them, they chilled out
after about 3 seconds. The place got pretty packed pretty quickly
with most of the punters there to see the first act, who were very nice.
When I came on the room was incredibly noisy,
not usually a problem when you're playing with a band. It's easy just
to get their attention by being louder than them. But playing solo
is a little different. You have to win them over with a little more
subtlety. I'd say I was about 50% successful, with the people sat
down the front getting into it whilst the ignorant f*&^ers at the
back continued their, I'm sure, wildly entertaining conversations
(just a quick question...why go to a music venue if you want to
talk?).
Anyway, the sound guy was raving about
the set afterwards (I trust sound guys opinions, they see a lot of
acts) and I thought it went pretty well too seeing as it wasn't my
crowd so I left the stage reasonably happy.
The headliners were, I have to say,
very very good. Quite a combination of styles but they pulled it off
with some panache. The singer Anita was very cute and her voice is
spell binding and the violinist, who looks a bit like a mad albino
genius (and probably is!) was not just a phenomenal player but also
a very funny bastard too. Prick.
I hung around for their set and drank
most of the becks out of the green room fridge before happily
discovering that I'd made $200 that night which would easily afford
me a taxi back to St Kilda and a poke of chips into the bargain.
Result!
Tonight is back in St Kilda at Pure Pop
records. I've already given up trying to guess what these nights are
gonna hold. That's probably half the fun of it.
Right, better go and buy some pants.