It's Not My Birthday Yet...

It has three doors that all you need to know...
So its the night before my 49th birthday and am on a London bus - it has three doors that all you need to know - if you are the sort of person that requires more info about a bus - then stop reading now - I'm not that sort of person!!! - I'm on my way to a gig.

Tomorrow I enter my fiftieth year on planet earth and a thought enters my head - all the talk this year will be about the BIG 5-0 next year - but how about celebrating my 50th year by going to 50 gigs in my 50th year....

That is just under one a week, I have 7 gigs booked already so that’s only another 43 to go.

And that’s it - I'm not setting any other challenges - lets just see what happens...

All things in modulation...
Oh yes and I'll blog about each gig - but if you want set lists and lengthy descriptions about equipment used, time signatures and key changes - then you can stop reading along with the bus anoraks - the blogs will be about the event - as likely to be about the guy behind me who knows nothing but tells us everything (if he tells us once more he loves it when a band ‘go higher at the end of a song' – I personally will buy him a Westlife ticket and stuff it down his throat) as it is a critic of the band.

No T-shirt till Hammersmith
I’ve been in London for just over six months and one of the joys has been going to gigs at venues that previous were only dates on the back of my tour T-shirts! 

I have been going to gigs since I was a teenager living in Manchester - tonight I’m at Shepherds Bush Empire to see Bears Den – and I’m so excited I’m standing in the crowd at the Shepherds Bush Empire – I have to tell someone so I turn to the woman next to me and shout in her ear ‘I can’t f**king believe this I’m at the Shepherds Bush Empire – it’s like so big’ she doesn’t even look at me but promptly pushes forward in the crowd.  

Bolero has been playing for the past 10 minutes, unnoticed at first but as it builds the crowd start to notice and pretend to skate, then the roadie flashes the touch from the stage at the sound desk (still sends a thrill down the spine even after over 35 years of gigs) and the band are on stage now and they are inform us this is their biggest headline gig – ‘We can’t f**king believe this we’re at the Shepherds Bush Empire – its like so big’ – Ahead of me in the crowd I catch sight of the woman who was next to me as she cheers and claps and shouts we love you… 

I hope the band realise the power of being guys with guitars – they can say the most inane things and get adored for it!

Take that bun out of my eye and your bag out my crotch…
When I started going to gigs, mainly at the Manchester Apollo, if you had a ticket for the stalls you had a seat – not anymore I’m in the stalls but there aren’t any and I’m standing listening to Bears Den in a Bear Pit.

Music’s Third Law of Gigs – For every inch of your height, there is an equal and slightly taller guy in front of you.   

And then there is the pushy woman with two friends who forces her way in front of you – I ask her politely to take that bun out of my eye and her bag out my crotch - its not my birthday yet...

But maybe that’s the problem in approaching my 50^th year I’m just too old to be in the non existent stalls – perhaps I have to accept that I’m a circle kind of guy now!

What will they do when breads are out of fashion…

I’ve been to many Folk gigs in my life – when Folk was unfashionable and no self-respecting musician had facial hair – but here the place is packed and the hair follicles flow freely– and I’m feeling all of my 48 years 364 days...

Folk - OK they call it alternative folk- but its not its just folk - is trendy and Bears Den get to play the Shepherds Bush Empire and once or twice the experience seemed to threatened them and there was a danger that they would be overawed - but they recovered.

Bears Den are great exponents of this new wave of folk – with anthemic tunes, tender love songs and careful arrangements that beat any finger in your ear folk singer with battered acoustic guitar. But what will they do when beards are out of fashion? I think this is the biggest challenge for all the bands like Bears Den – will they ever play bigger venues - and is folk in an arena a good idea - personally any genre in an arena is a bad idea...

Music should be for the masses but not all in one arena!!!

So how will this latest incarnation of folk progress?

Progressive Folk – now there’s a genre I want to see – careful not to get your beard caught in the zip of your fox outfit……