22/08/07
Fri 17th Aug -
Categories: I’m just going to have to do this when I can. I’m horribly busy. Too busy to even blog. So you’ll have to get entries all over the place in the wrong order.
Today I got up, had a chicken fahita dish made by Mister Manera and went out to flyer. After my pep talk by Duggie Dunlop yesterday, I tried my best to not look so dejected and knackered. I can understand the knackered bit, but not sure why the dejection. Must just be over knackered. My number have been good, slightly up on last year. The show’s now in the swing of things and I’m starting to adlib more which is what I wanted. It’s a better show than last year and it’s more like an Edinburgh show. I’ve had people coming back from last year. My lovely girlfriend Sophia is in town with her friend Tina. My friends Dave and Lucy are out for a night of watching shows and drinking. This is all good stuff. But boy is it all getting to me. I haven’t been chilling out enough.
Today I flyered for ages on the Royal Mile then popped down to the new Pear Shaped in the Afternoon at the White Horse with Rob Debb who’s also looking not his chirpy self, but confesses to have between half full and full rooms. He’s getting groups of gamers coming to his show and he’s been chatting a lot to the C-Files improv guy about conventions. It must just be the passing the halfway mark that’s doing it. A lot of people are doing their last shows this week. This means there’s going to be loads of irritating people full of happiness and energy and excitement because they’ve just got to the festival.
I have to say, the new Pear Shaped was really lovely. The place was full of punters enjoying themselves, the acts were sober, some of them had talent, the landlord was lovely, smartly dressed and called me sir. There was a friendly guy whom I knew from somewhere but he was welcoming and collected glasses, the room was a fantastic space which looked like a reconstructed cellar and even the pissed guy who kept talking at the back was friendly. So nothing like the old place.
I went up and tried to do a spot when people kept entering. Eventually someone in a wheelchair was being wheeled in so I decided to stop and let them get in because pissed bloke, while being helpful was suffering from verbal dihorea and was giving Coughlan a run for his money. So Brian got me to sing a long with one of the many Pear Shaped songs he’s written advertising the show, to which I didn’t know the words for. Then we started again. About a minute into my set, the person in the wheelchair was being wheeled out. All that fucking fuss for nothing.
From chatting to other acts it seems my theory of free shows bringing more people to the festival is probably true, but when I first wrote that comment I didn’t take into account how many more shows in general there were. I read an interesting article in The Scotsman that has mentioned the fact that it has finally got too big. I would like to think that this will put people off or make them think twice, but it will probably get even bigger next year. I even struggle in the first week. I cancelled two of my solo shows and played to single figures twice. However this week is up on last week and on Sunday I played to a bigger crowd than I did last year. I’m still coming up next year, just not going to take on so much stuff.
I got to my gig and The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly were packed as usual. I ended up with about a half full room, so again, very pleased with that. I also had a lady that saw me last year. Look at me with my cult following. Doing a full run at the festival certainly takes it out on your stuff. My guitar seems to now be permanently out of tune, my gay cowboy hat is in tatters and I have to keep brushing my lady boy wig.
Saying that the show was a corker. Sophia spoiled a bit by accident, when I asked the room if there were any ladies out there that would have sex with me. Then one guy said, “I see your girlfriend’s in”. This actually made the show more fun as all the stories about picking up crack whores etc got bigger laughs now the audience knew she was there.
I actually had to cut the show short again due to adlibbing and messing around. Especially when I did my annoying poet to a woman that just walked in and redid the first half of the show in 30 seconds to some late comers.
All in all a great show, I was well happy with that also I had a woman that saw me last year and she brought a mate. Muchos happiness.
After I dragged all my stuff to The Counting House to watch Manera’s show. Dave was particularly interested to see Mike’s show because he’d read so much about him in last year’s blog. A good time was had by all and Manera did sterling work when the batteries on the cordless mic started to make a heartbeat noise so he got the crowd to sit forward and did the rest of the show a cappella. A very classy show, with a classy performance in a classy venue. Not for the likes of me. I’m thinking of doing the Jekyll and Hyde next year.
We then got a cab to Lindsays and did the show there AGAIN. The show started off quietly and eventually got full. By the end I was tired and pissed and to be honest fed up with dragging all my props and guitar all that way for the umpteenth time. That’s my entire day, I’m in the middle of the biggest festival in the world and I’m not getting to see anything.
After the show we quickly finished our drinks and got a cab. We sat up for an hour or so drinking wine and chatting before bed. It was about 2.30am. Quite early for us.
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