There are some gigs where you arrive and you think, “this is going to be fine”.
There are other gigs where you accidentally take a wrong turn on the way there forcing you to drive through (and pay for) the Mersey tunnel twice despite there being no need, to arrive, in Birkenhead, at a bar that looks like it’s been ripped from the set of Sons Of Anarchy.
The venue is a rock bar and I had trepidation to put it mildly. How would piano led comedy and songs work in a bar clearly more suited to rock?
It turned out to be better than fine.
Lesson 1 – Don’t judge a gig by everything you can see when you arrive.
I opened the night, always risky as you have to set the tone for the evening and I was really conscious of that. The need to be high impact, go at a furious pace and try to inject as much energy as possible into the night. I opened with “Now are you ready to rock” which, in a new development, I managed to play mostly right. It’s the simplest part of my entire set but I seem to lose the timings quite a lot. I followed that with “beasteality” which worked really nicely.
Lesson 2 – Make sure each song is supported by two “talking” punchlines or moments.
The set was probably one of the strongest I’ve done in the musical guise, with the opening particularly getting much better. I lagged in the middle, the songs lacking adequate supporting jokes or content to make it interesting. Missed out the call back with the “70s TV Star” AGAIN. I swear to god if I ever remember to do it it’ll be the best part of the set.
Had a lovely improv moment halfway through a song the audience were lukewarm about where I changed it to a song about an audience member. Caught people off guard and the unpredictability seemed to be effective.
Lesson 3 – Improv is good, but needs to be controlled to ensure it doesn’t just become an improv thing.
Ended with the Tory song (formerly David Cameron) which doesn’t quite work now it’s been rewritten. It needs a figure of hate more strongly in it. Also I failed to bring 2 x new songs with me that I wanted to try. Overall though a fun gig with lots of great feedback afterwards. Still, however, lots to work on before I ask for pro-gig trial spots or try it at pro-gig tryout nights.
Gig rating: 7.5/10 – fun for trying new bits
My Performance: 7.5/10 – much better but with a noticeable drop in the middle and a weak(ish) ending