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OK, so tell us the important stuff first, Harper! What did you end up -wearing-?"
I ended up wearing the such-a-dark-purple-it's-nearly-black silk velvet blouse from Love Your Peaches, one of the few real designers I've ever fallen totally in love with, along with a black velvet skirt and actual heels. Yes, I wore heels. Aside from the usual, "should have worn trainers to walk to the club, then switched to heels," feeling, I thought it worked fairly well.
And who-all was there?
Regular-wise, there were lots of people whose faces were all familiar to me but whose names I haven't all got sorted out, so I'm going to fudge on that one.
LJ-wise, we had
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In the end, I suppose there were 25 or 30 people there, which isn't a bad audience for a folk club in Eltham on a Wednesday night.
How were the pre-performance floor acts?
Oh, you know how things go at the Tudor Barn (or maybe you don't). They were decidedly mixed, I'm afraid, and included a talking blues guy who talked a lot, the fellow I always describe as the guy who msut once have been in possession of a really fine tenor, the two girls who did the emotionless cover of "Hallelujah" a week or two ago and did an equally limpid and impassive cover of "Down in the River to Pray," from one of my favourite films ever, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?. Unfortunately, they only did two verses of it. I do like listening to them, but I wish they'd put a little more into it. After that, the two gentlemen whom I just love to hear got up and did a single song. They were great. To the disappointment of everyone who who came out especially to see me on Wednesday, Tone Deaf Leopard did not appear.
First Set? How was that?
I thought it went really well. I like being at the point where I only have to refer to lyrics if I'm in real trouble, and generally almost never. I don't ever perform with a music stand anymore, and I think it helps me communicate with the audience better. I did keep a copy of the one song I don't regularly perform on the floor near me so I could glance at it if I panicked, but I didn't have to glance at it, not even once.
Ghosts -- not a song I ordinarily play, because I think the bridge is flawed, but it went well.
Night Shuttle Song -- Again, not a song I play a lot, because I've been under the impression that people don't like it or it's just not as good as some of my other original stuff. It went off very well, I thought.
Guinevere -- The first of the three covers in this set, "Guinevere's Tune" is by Robin Batteau. I learned it when I heard Lucy Kaplansky do one of her signature "I'm bored with this song"-style covers of it on her eponymous CD a few years ago.
Little Sparrow -- A ballad extraction, and the only traditional song I sang Wednesday night. People at Sharps and even at Folkmob are used to hearing me do traditional stuff, so I stayed firmly in singer-songwriter mode on Wednesday night. I did a lot of interesting things with the accompaniment that I really liked and think I'll do again.
The Word of God -- The night's second cover, this is Cat Faber (
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Broken Wing -- One of my songs that doesn't get performed an awful lot, not because it's a bad song (it has a fun running bass line, among other things), but because I don't often think about it. It's also more fun to perform with Heretic than the lap harp, because the bass line sounds just gorgeous when Heretic does it in the lower octaves.
By Now -- Third cover. This is a Richard Shindell song that I just love because of the suspense it evokes with just a little story. It's a beautiful song written by somebody whose work I really admire.
Like Their Feet Have Wings -- Well, we'd had a couple of downers. I figured it was time for a change of pace. Besides, it was right before the break and, "depressed people don't buy lots of CDs, you know."
We sold several CDs at the break, which felt great.
And then it was time for
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Well, they were fantastic. They opened with "Prince of All Argyll," which I thought was a brave choice at a folk club, since it's essentially filk, but Folkmob is exactly the kind of place where you can do things like that-- the audience were singing along and enjoying themselves. They did Sholem, which people really seemed to respond to, and a Greek song about Sinbad I hadn't heard before. Very, very good performances on all these numbers, particularly "Sholem," but that may be because I love that song and I think it is wonderful to hear people singing along with a song that is about peace. For an encore, because the audience were screaming for one (and with good reason) they did what
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As usual, I still haven't won my bottle of Ouzo in the raffle!
But enough about that. On to the second set....
I started out by introducing the 'band' and talking a little bit about Heretic and what kind of a harp he is. And then I'm afraid I did the time-honoured patter about people asking me if I can play taht thing. Heh, heh, heh. I do like actually playing the harp for people who've only heard me sing with it.
Instrumentals
(Lament for Rory’s Sister, a harp air that I love because it uses the entire range of whatever harp I'm playing-- and Heretic has a big range);
(The South Wind, which I chose off the cuff because I thought the tune would be familiar to people, and it was);
(Two Welsh Reels, because people are impressed with teh fastness. I had intended to do Over the Water to Charlie in that slot, but I hadn't played it in a couple of days and didn't want to realise I'd forgotten variation seven of nine right at the end of variation eight).
Ordinary Love -- Originally I had planned to do either "Free Fall" or "Love Song for a Friend" in that space, and one of the guys in the duo I love had actually requested LSFAF (and "My Fairytale"), so I figured I'd do that one. But then at the break I realised I'd really wanted to put Ordinary Love in there, and so I swapped it. You can only have so many sappy love songs in one set, you know. There is a limit. Of course, I felt bad later when
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Falling for Lancelot -- I'm so happy with this song. I love it when I can look out at an audience and know I had them from 'hello.' Yes, it is possible for me to perform this song without TWS, although it sounds different. It is, er, differently dramatic. I favour the lyrics more when I sing it by myself, but I do that with everything.
Bramble and the Rose -- If I had to choose the weakest point of the set, this would be it. This is a song by Mary McCaslin, and I just love it, but I got used to performing it with the band and it may be that it's just better with more than one musician.
Iowa -- Well, you can't go wrong with a Dar Williams cover, can you? I don't think I did.
Joan of Arc -- One of my favourite songs of all time, by Leonard Cohen, and I think it shows when I perform it.
Sugar From the Moon -- This is the most recent really good song I've written, from autumn of 2003. I'm hoping to change that in the near future. I thought it went over well, although it might have been a poor closing choice: the sentiment is right, but the high notes were not perfect.
Don't tell us you did an encore...."
For an encore, because three separate people had requested it, I slogged my way through "My Fairytale." I had
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And after the show?
Well, it was late. We socialised and hugged and kissed and walked out to the bus stop with
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We were exhausted but starving, so we reckoned we could afford takeaway just this once, and we had late night kebabs. I even had a Diet Coke. :)
The End. For an additional report, check out Highstone's recap.
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Date: 2005-12-09 03:18 pm (UTC)Pthphphphpht!
Teddy
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Date: 2005-12-09 03:31 pm (UTC)Yay!!! Makes me wish
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Date: 2005-12-09 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 04:20 pm (UTC)I need to win tonight's lottery, so that I can actually hear some of these sets. Outside my head, that is. Rather, in my head, but only in the ears. You know what I mean :-)
And mmmm, Richard Shindell music.
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Date: 2005-12-09 06:38 pm (UTC)We had a great time!
As someone who hasn't actually heard you do that much, I really enjoyed just being able to sit back and listen!
I particularly enjoyed
* Little Sparrow (loved the dips and dives with your voice as well as the accompaniment)
* the instrumental at the beginning of the second half. This is going to sound silly, but the wire harp makes a big impression on me when I hear the lower resonant notes so I love hearing the moments where you do something spartan, with the profound low notes and light texture up top (I think this was the first one in your instrumental).
* Falling for Lancelot - I love the fact you can make a big, angry, rocky sound with the harp! I get really carried away listening to this one. I also really like the way you arpeggio (wrong word, but you know what I mean) down on both voice and harp for the 'falling for...falling for...'
* The victim encore, which I hadn't heard because I don't have your CD, and it made me think of all sorts of things, including 10th kingdom. *bounce*
Think I'll now go and repost this in my journal, plus my review of our little slot!
[/enthusiastic ramble]
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Date: 2005-12-09 08:22 pm (UTC)Good choice of outfit on your part - must admit my sight and ears were more focussed on your hands as they touched the harp strings though. My impression with the CDs was that all but one had sold by the end of the evening...?
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Date: 2005-12-09 11:19 pm (UTC)The impression I had was that he was playing a quite reasonable guitar instrumental that was rather spoilt by someone talking loudly over it. The person talking being him. It didn't seem to connect to the music he was playing at all.
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Date: 2005-12-09 11:01 pm (UTC)There is a book I heard about on NPR this week titled MISQUOTING JESUS.
It's by a U. North Carolina (Chapel Hill) prof named Bart Ehrman and I was almost instantly reminded of Cat's song. Professor Ehrman's book takes a look at the text of the New Testament back to the oldest versions we've found to-date, and focuses on the copying errors (inadvertent and otherwise)and the occasional significant differences they make in the practice of Christianity.
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Date: 2005-12-10 04:13 am (UTC)I like "My Fairytale" but it's hardly my favorite. Well, now you know to do a song you're comfortable with as an encore -- and you *will* get encored again at your next gig, and you *will* get another gig.
I'm going to blame the lack of post-show sales on the fact that people had to get home and likely were worried that you were embarrassed over your ending bobble and didn't want to talk to people.
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Date: 2005-12-10 12:50 pm (UTC)Garbage! Rubbish! Don't believe it.