Acoustic Night

Andi Langford-Woods opens the evening speaking French… “Bonsoir et bien venue a La Nuit Acoustique Soizante Neuf”. Yes folks we are truly international…

Tony Rowlands
Tony started the night with some of his newly published poems. Teachers all over the room could identify with the pressures of the Inspection team which captured a dream like sequence of events poetically. He also offered us that poets’ standby… love and relationships but with humour and tenderness.

TONY ROWLANDS

Mike – the four M’s
He gave us a song and a poem from his personal experience… giving the devil the lie and baring his recently troubled mind. Well done for being brave Mike.

MIKE the 4 Ms

John Terry
John always gives us truth and this time it was the strangeness of bees. Bristol buses would seem to offer little complexity for his second poem but John gave us both well crafted wit and insight.

Mike Billing
Mike’s social relationships were described in the form of three short poems, the last one about  the after effects of a nose-job witnessed here in Halo… touching observation Mike.

Sam Lynn-Evans
Sam billed himself as a comedy act but his one liners were mixed with more serious poems.

SAM LYNN-EVANS

Phil Baber
Our acoustic night stalwart returned to give us La Nina and La Guitarra with passion, verve and skill. Good to see you again Phil.

Max Milton
Here we had songs about a dark night of drinking and a lament for Jenny. And we finally got the right knobs on the guitar twiddled and everyone was happy.

MAX MILTON

Simon
Two personal poems which reflected some of the difficulty of modern life.

Mary Spender
Taking time to come from Salisbury Mary is a performer new to us.  Mary gave us a really gutsy, polished and accomplished performance of her own songs. Captivity starts with neat finger picking and a smooth vocal delivery on the solitude of city life. Warts and Ghosts was a spooky plea for consideration of spectral feelings, well we think it was! The audience were keen to hear a third song and Mary finished with Melancholy Parade, an upbeat driving song on the contemporary global situation. Well done!

MARY SPENDER

BREAK

Martin John and James Gale
On form and welcome as usual they upped the tempo and the atmosphere. Martin starts with Astorias, an instrumental guitar piece with loads of reverb written by Isaac Albanez. Jack’s Song is a reply to a song martin sang a couple of nights ago. Another sensitive offering. James opens with Beyond, a Finnish poem turned into a song. A neat duet of guitar picking followed by You Can’t Wrap Your Arms Round A Memory – shades of glorious torchsongs from the past.

Jennifer Waters
She knows her pub snacks and these were neatly woven into an observational piece Gala Pie. High calorie words with added spice.

Caroline steps up to give us an a capella song Freedom. Soulful bluesy flowing over the room

Molly Case
Her love is like a subway sandwich tackled with passion just the same… no wonder she wanted to recall her lover’s departure in the second poem. Her second poem The Unrequited tells of watching her lover from behind glass…poignant words.

MOLLY CASE

Anne and Sean/Sean and Anne
Whether its Anne and Sean or Sean and Anne, guitar, voice and flute were mixed to good effect in their songs, the first a pensive song on death with floating flute melody followed by a slightly more sinister uptempo tune with reference to Flamenco and Led Zep… discuss.

ANNE AND SEAN

Lucas Hadley
Insomnia was closely observed and laid out to dry by Lucas with much feeling. His poem
SuperHero Daydream - “positively charged like an anode” went down well too.

LUCAS HADLEY

Julian Ramsey Wade
A cover of a Harvey Andrews song which in these times of recession reminds us that its those at the bottom of the financial heap suffer most. Matching a strong sentiment with a powerful performance.

Pearletta Hopkins
A piece by Pearletta gave us a picture of her honeymoon… she’s not submitting again to an unexpected hill climb on Lundy Island! “In these shoes Rupert?” Tomorrow was a sweet short piece we enjoyed. Welcome Pauletta! See you again soon we hope.

PAULETTA

Ros Martin
In Black History Month Ros gave us Liberating Freedom, an inspiring piece in the voice of the ancestors urging us all to greater and wider humanity.

Andi Langford-Woods.
Andi’s anger at a badly behaved man was clear, unambiguous and unforgiving. As ever she is able to craft the ebb and flow of human behavior into powerful words.

Chris Beckett had waited patiently (again) and brings the night to an end with his roots fuelled, well loved, folk style. We like him and want him to get his ass down earlier!!!

CHRIS BECKETT

It was wet and miserable outside but we had a good nite, somewhat somber at times but hell, there was a lot of soul in the room.

Hazel shaped the blog and Andi wrapped it up.

ACOUSTIC NIGHT STATS
AUDIENCE    38
PERFORMERS 22
VIRGINS 6