ACOUSTIC NIGHT 59. JUNE 2 2008
June 5th, 2008
The evening starts with Hal (surname: Badgertrap) asking all to help him write the final song in his set, by form of a line each. A somewhat novel request from the Special Guest but it seems rather inspired and the audience duly oblige.
Starting with a somewhat sparse audience (although growing later) HELEN GREGORY gave us a tale about fish with souls (pun intension unknown!) and thus proves there is, indeed, much to be said about fish!
She then cordially invites us to be entertained by the 59th Acoustic Night @ Halo and JULIAN RAMSAY-WADE extended the introduction! With his excellent quick rhyming and entertaining verses he then told us about blizzards and the weather!
Next up was the man ‘they’ (who ‘they’ are I don’t know!) call ‘La Guitarra’! However, it appeared his alter-ego PHIL BABER was on show tonight as, quite rarely it seems, both his songs were in English.
Phil introduced his first song with a story of a Gloucester Road flower shop that advertised it’s availability for flowers for “Weddings or Funerals.” It appears some cynical wag had graffitied “No Difference” in capital letters underneath!
This aside Phil’s breezy numbers cheered us up on a rainy day, even if he did say so himself.
POLLY MOYER, Acoustic Night’s answer to Dellboy Trotter, followed. After informing the audience of the bargains that could be had, she read a childhood tale revolving around her father. A meaningful and poignant piece this was then trailed by a good poem about subtraction. Shame indeed that she will be soon departing our mists for the shores of the New World.
Next up was CHARLIE ANSELL with, firstly, his reworking of the traditional song Lisbon. A tale of travel, sex and pregnancy; all good folk territory. Next he ripped into Show Of Hands’ Cutthroats, Crooks & Conmen; a socio-political rant discussing the over-capitalist nature of modern Britain that got the crowd clapping.
From Political Agitation to Special Magication we swiftly moved with MAGIC SIMON. This week Simon found a coin, talked about The Bangles, had Knots that aren’t ‘Forget-Me’ Knots, disappearing Kings and the magic ribbon, which of course, produced much applause, especially from the rear echelons of the audience.
GINA BRIGANTI then sang a couple of numbers acapella dealing with relationships and finding each other, including the lovely No Pleasure Without Love. A lovely voice and a great lyric writer.
After Helen had informed us of her partially to sugar-based snacks ANGIE BELCHER appeared. We now all know of her less than fondness towards Dave! Luckily no Dave’s were harmed in the performance but hearing of the Coco Pops of Doom was a novel learning experience for us all! Computers then a took a battering in a very effective style for being slow and repetitive but Grand Theft Auto was the end result, a just reward!
We were led to the break by CASCAVEL. Acoustic Night virgins, they brought us some R&B previously lacking from Acoustic Night’s regular repertoire. You Want Me Back established that the two girl lead singers are not to be messed about by silly boys and Move On proved that they will. Two bonus features were their third member who played the keyboard and bass drum and also there snazzy matching T-Shirts!
THE BREAK FOLLOWED
After the break ANDI LANGFORD-WOODS introduced our special guest with a poem about belief and having sex with cricket teams!
Mr Camplin alias BADGERTRAP then took the spotlight with his lovely guitar (this blogger was jealous!) and his celebratory party poppers! His opening ditty was a lovely tale of incestuous sex in Nebraska which has hit potential! This was followed by songs about Caterpillars, Kidney’s, Monday’s and Phoetuses. The highlight was probably his tune Missing In 1981 and yes Hal, I bet that woman would like to know where you buried her cat!
The Badger Disco was the finale to the set, where Hal used the audience’s endeavours to adlib to the tune entitled Kebab Deaf. It was a fitting ending to a beautifully chaotic set with Hal dressed as his infamous alter-ego Barry the Badger and his side-kick, Lennox, showed us his new anti-rape alarm which blurted out the phrase Get off me you paedo!
How do you follow that? Well IAN SILLS added to the parental poetry theme with one about his mother. We however, never did discover the name of the shop his mum can’t walk into in Cheshire, but it wasn’t Sainsbury’s. Then he explained why he couldn’t sing the blues, which fitting he didn’t sing in a blues style.
MARK & SUE were next. Mark first with his two solo tour-de-force’s, one called The Constancy of Affection and the other about being a girl on the inside. The latter song featured the line of the night; “my genitalia’s not going to change”. After the scat ending Sue joined for two songs; a Folk Song from Newfoundland with Mark and an acapella version of an old Irish song on her own.
After this the performing resources had been exhausted and we went around again.
CHARLIE ANSELL reared his head again and walloped us with an old Jacobite song about a very randy George I.
And finally ANGIE BELCHER popped up once more to tell us why the global recycling problem was down to not recycling lettuces!
Genius! Another Acoustic Night safely navigated with much talent, fun and frolicks!
ACOUSTIC NIGHT STATS
AUDIENCE 33
PERFORMERS 16
VIRGINS 7
