This weekend’s gigs were hard work. Not particularly in the stock metaphorical sense of being ignored or having to really be over-the-top to not be, but literally.

It’s been a heatwave weekend, and humid with it, in southern England at least. Brixton Hootananny is high-ceilinged and fairly spacious as indie rock venues go (to be honest it’s usually more of a reggae and allied genres venue, with fairly frequent ventures into Balkan-beat and other brass-led sounds), but even for our opening slot at Stranger than Paradise it was fairly well occupied, and it’s not exactly airy. Filthy Spectacula sets always involve a lot of jumping around anyway!

The Hope wasn’t particularly stuffy last night in its own right – it was just conforming to the temperature and humidity of surrounding Richmond, ie positively Mediterranean. Kindred Spirit pub gigs (the full band sets are another matter) are mostly rather more restrained in stagecraft than Filthy ones, but also a lot longer, at standard 2 x 45 minimum. The place really started to fill up about the end of our first set (Elaine and I already dripping sweat!), and suddenly came fully on board with us over half way through the second, apparently won over by a barnstorming, caution-and-taste-to-the-winds (and much more extended than I’d planned) rip through Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Freebird’ – which was certainly the last straw for my core body temperature!

So today I’m taking a breather (and blogging). Especially as the coming week is a musical endurance course:
Monday night: Filthy Spectacula rehearsal (Reading)
Tuesday evening: rehearsal for a one-off cabaret evening involving several of my arrangements, as well as playing viola (north London)
Wednesday lunchtime: rehearsal for a combined arts event including commissioned score (Oxford Brookes University)
Wednesday afternoon / evening: final run-through and event of aforementioned cabaret evening (Reading)
Thursday evening: Kindred Spirit rehearsal (west London)
Friday evening: BREATHE!
Saturday evening: Filthy Spectacula gig (the Mill, Plumstead)
Sunday all day: Filthy Spectacula music video shoot
Monday: haven’t looked that far ahead yet

See you at something, or on the other side!