Acoustic Night

Andi Langford-Woods overcame the bone-wearying tour schedule of recent weeks to MC this Acoustic Night and opened with an elegant outpouring of choice poetry. She then introduced the returning Keith and Wendy with a sad song about a singed seagull in their own inimicable fashion. Keith then sang a solo song, sadder, more serious but still stylish.

KEITH AND WENDY

Another returning star, Gary Death, then performed two pieces: one drawing us totally into the dark world of pondlife and the other more seriously describing his work with the visually-impaired. Again, the mix of silly and serious worked a treat.

GARY DEATH

Our first half blogger, Sarah, then stepped up to the stage and sang two lyrical guitar backed songs in a melodic voice. The second, entitled Darkness in My Heart, left light in others.

SARAH

Yet another long lost brother, Phil Baber, then performed two songs on his return: the first a Cohenesque piece of passion and fury (if that makes sense) and the second “La Guitarra”, in Spanish without subtitles but nevertheless lively and dramatic.

Simon the Magician followed with the usual clever magic and stupid jokes – as virtually the only performer who would not usually use a microphone he overcomes the difficulty with style and ease.

MAGIC SIMON

Our special guest then performed before the break. Stuart O’Connor was on a nationwide tour and played more Bristol gigs later in the week, but here he drew us into his world of loops, beeps, slapped guitars and a sometimes smooth, sometimes edgy vocal telling stories which teetered on the precipice of normality and sometimes tumbled off. He also stopped the music for a moment and read a moving and heartfelt poem. Glad we caught him this early – he’ll be playing bigger venues next time.

STUART O’CONNOR

BREAK

Caleb Parkin sat behind a cello and a laptop and in his first piece “Hexadecimalis” interchanges live and recorded speech and cello playing to great if weird effect. “Rat – an Exact Science” was the fourth in his “Vermin” series and brought a rat’s eye view of animal experimentation (“the light-up box of faces needs me”). Clever and different.

CALEB PARKIN

Rosemary Dun, another much missed performer (perhaps we should subtitle this evening the night of the comebacks?) previewed her set at the Harbourside Festival at the weekend with “Being English” (“we laugh at farts because we’re Anglo-Saxon”), a sideways look at her countrymen and women; and “Shipshape Bristol fashion” about her current home city (The Organic Ice-cream guy is Sunday hungover”) and the festival itself. Appetite whetted!

ROSEMARY DUN

James Bunting, another….yes, you’ve guessed it, sang about falling in love with a fictional character (“fireworks like Promethean fire”) and then read a poem, “Immortality and Mortality”, which treated its subject respectfully but not over-seriously (“Live, live, live because if you don’t you won’t know life”). A vibrant and resonant piece.

JAMES BUNTING

Pete Hunter then performed a two-line poem “I thought it would be cool to have a Chocolate Orange heart / but when I tapped it and unwrapped it, it fell apart”. He followed this with a descriptive poem about his days at college in Falmouth (“Sunny, sunny days of watching waves as sharp as language”). As usual his beautifully crafted serious pieces contrast sharply with his sillier efforts.

PETE HUNTER

Mr Bananas (Derek to his friends) performed an e e cummings poem (“I like my body”) which made fruity suggestions about using it and a frivolous poem about a red dress (“I want a red dress / I want it flimsy and cheap”) which shared a true sense of the ridiculous which came across to the audience.

MR BANANAS

Andy then played George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun” displaying a jangly guitar-playing style and sound vocals; which he followed with a poignant version of Don MacLean’s “Vincent”.

ANDY

George Wade (Grampy G) performed two pieces for and about his absent offspring: for Julian (Ramsay-Wade of this parish) he described his children “growing into their own skins” and for Ali his denial that he is “Proud” of his children because that implies ownership of them (“You’re not an acquisition”). Lovely to hear from him again.

GEORGE WADE

He was followed by John T, who had “just tried writing a song”. “Human greed is the cause of all poverty” was a serious theme but was offset by jangly guitars and a light touch. He followed that with a tale of a band touring Britain in the Seventies in a van – a descriptive piece with slide guitar accompaniment.

JOHN T

Nearly finally, the Bath Spa trio of Agatha, James and Taya walked onstage together. Taya (who may well have been the night’s only “Virgin”) read “Night Trial” (“My fingers feel for the fugitive tears”) and will be back, one trusts. James stated unarguably that “We all look more beautiful in black and white” (well we were much younger, then!) and suggested “Irony is our greatest authority, while Agatha invited us to spend “a day in my mind “ in “Insanity List” (Imagine you are a Hindu concubine”). Love them all, with their skills and varied styles.

Pausing only for a blast of the Jew’s (Jaws) harp courtesy of the ever-helpful and musically skilful David Bosankoe, another riotous recipe of rhymes and rhythms was complete. There were enough quality performers in the audience to have played on until 3am, but some of us have real jobs.

ACOUSTIC NIGHT STATS

AUDIENCE  53
PERFORMERS 20
VIRGINS 1
BEDOUINS not tonight!