After a day’s anxiety about whether EasyJet would deliver me back to Edinburgh in time for the Bespoke gig, we took to the stage at 10 exactly as planned, following a series of varied but accomplished bands. It’s hard to be sure exactly how long this band’s been working towards this, our second gig, and our first as a five-piece, but this was it. We seemed to fly through the six songs in the set, and the audience … liked it! For the first few songs I couldn’t really hear my guitar in the mix, but went for the usual atonal screech anyway. People were cheering even before the end of the first song; I thought they were taking the piss. Later in the set, as the on-stage mix got better and we relaxed, I began to hear the set as an audience member hearing it for the first time, and thought, yes this is good and these people seem to know what they’re doing. The lovely ballad Used To Be, the gem set in the middle of the set, was the turning point for me, when I realised it was all working. The only thing that went wrong was a bit ironic – I’ve jokingly told people before that my brief in this band is to play in a different key from the rest of the song: I don’t actually, I play some atonal stuff and some whole-tone scales but for the last song, Project Blue, I have my four bars to play something harmonic and beautiful. Last night I launched into it and – aaagh! what’s happening? My guitar seemed to be out of tune. Sean threw me a look from the other side of the stage that almost drew blood. It was only when I turned to Dom for his organ solo that I realised from his exasperated expression it was his keyboards, underlying my solo, that had somehow pitch-shifted to an unknown key! Anyway the audience thought it was intentional and rewarded us with lots of cheers and chanting for an encore (which we couldn’t provide).
Thanks to Dom for arranging the gig and to Sean for insisting on such a disciplined approach to the rehearsals and Fi for the photos.