Blog: Like A Six Month Festival

While preparing the next issue of the newsletter I've been looking at my forthcoming gigs page and thinking "This is all looking a bit same-y isn't it?" Don't get me wrong, I am VERY HAPPY INDEED to spend LOTS of time in The King & Queen, but it does look a bit STRANGE having my next FOUR gigs (and 3 of my 5 so far this year) all in the same place! I do have plenty of other places to play during the summer - including some we've yet to announce and HOPEFULLY a few performances of Still Valid at FRINGE Festivals - but there WAS a time when my gig list would look like an Exciting Travelogue around our great NATION.

Of course there was ALSO a time when I was ten years younger and quite happy to spend half my life zooming around on TRANES, sleeping in IBII, and NOT sitting at home in The Olympic Village (have I mentioned I live there?) having a lovely time instead. I think the key is to look BEYOND the location and instead examine the - really pretty bloody AMAZING - line-up of ACTS what I have got booked for the rest of this SEASON of Totally Acoustic, THUS:

Thursday 2 March	ME (doing new songs), Gavin Osborn and Matt Abbott
Thursday 6 April	Helen McCookerybook, Robert George Saull and Jack Rosies.
Thursday 4 May	Royston Vince, Matthew Stead & Rob Ash, and The Perfect English Weather.
Thursday 1 June	Nathaniel Metcalfe and a full band set from PO!
Thursday 6 July	Emma Kupa, The Indelicates and Deerful.
Saturday 12 August	Pete Green, Chris T-T, Gavin Osborn, Frankie Machine, Matt Tiller, Keith Top Of The Pops and MORE (All-Dayer)!

I mean to say, look at THAT, if it was a festival line-up I ... well. I might even think of GOING, if there was a Premier Inn nearby! You may NOTE that it is now pretty much all booked up until the summer - I had PLANNED, this year, NOT book it all so far in advance, but to give myself SPACE in case I saw other bands I liked along the way. HOWEVER a) I hardly ever go to gigs anymore, so that wasn't hugely likely to happen b) I got a bit excited and asked loads of people anyway c) I had a Emergency Booking Flurry this week, which had CONSEQUENCES. I DID have the ever-amazing Ms Grace Petrie booked for our next show in March but she forgot to put it in her diary (we International Rock Stars do do that sometimes, it is a TRAIT!) and got booked on a whole TOUR instead! I'll get her in for a FUTURE show, but in the meantime I was down one act so emailed around several people who were on my LIST to see if they could fill in. Approx THREE of them couldn't do next week's show but COULD do others so, not wanting to pass up the chance of GETTING them, I booked them, HENCE the rather impressive list above.

Happily Mr Matt Abbott COULD do next week, which will make for RATHER a good evening and the continuation of a pretty flipping AMAZING run of shows. If you're out and about in That London on the first Thursday of the month (or the... er... second Saturday of August?) pop along, you are guaranteed to have a GRATE time!

posted 23/2/2017 by MJ Hibbett

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