Back home in North London now. It’s a quieter Giz-less place, and it’s now a bit more real that the little furry chap has gone. V. sad. The other fairly aged feline (tabby model) is very clingy at the moment, which is nice from a lots-of-cuddles point of view, but possibly suggests that he’s missing his ginger buddy…
The last gig on Saturday was great – our biggest audience, and a wonderful reaction from the crowd. I managed to dish out almost every flyer and poster we had (despite being handed a ‘hidden’ stack of flyers at 10pm!) and we played well, again. We didn’t really have an off-night, musically – Thursday was the least marvellous as I think we were both pretty tired by then but even then we played well.
So now I’m back, nursing my knackered knee, having had a mostly fantastic time at the Fringe, met some lovely people, caught up with lovely old friends, played some great fun cabaret shows, seen a few marvellous shows, flyered and postered like a mad thing, and done as much as I could to make the whole thing a success. Which it was. It could’ve been bigger, but with TSP coming back half-way through the week, and julie and her hubby for some reason not really believing in the usefulness of flyering, it was a tough one too. that many days pounding the streets of edinburgh, followed by setting up all the gear, packing down the gear, playing the late night shows was exhausting. But the music was fantastic – it’s a set I’m very proud of, and Julie’s got an amazing voice and sang the songs so well.
In some ways I wish I was still up there – I’ve never been to the Fringe just as a punter, and it’s clearly the single coolest place in the world to go for a holiday, except Greenbelt. I’d love to stay and hang out for a few days, but no time for that – bassists need to be taught, Recycle gigs need to be organised and promoted, Greenbelt needs to be prepared for, and my Italy trip in October needs sorting out… now more than ever, it’s looking like I’ll probably take the train, given that you can’t even take books on the plane (supposedly because you might decide to bored the passengers to death with a reading from Midnight’s Children?)
I’ve also got to sort out some more solo gigs! I’ve had a new album come out, done a launch gig, but don’t have anything as yet planned for the UK – all this New Standard stuff has taken over, and I think it would be prudent for me to work on some more me-gigs for a while!
If you’ve just found this after coming to see us at the Fringe – thanks so much for coming, it was a real pleasure to play for you, and to meet some many lovely people in the audience. I’ll be back there next year for sure. Feel free to join the mailing list to keep up to date with goings on through the year… xx