The Big Gig 1 - April 4 2003 - Manor Farm Tea Rooms, Seale, Surrey

In 2002 I’d done 3 Paul Weller songs on stage with Russell and the gigging bug had bitten me immediately. It had taken several rehearsals for me to get used to strumming so hard for 15 minutes! After that show I did 3 of my own tunes live on County Sound Radio (see the County Sound link) and learned an important lesson… I was now, apparently, subject to “nerves”! This came a surprise to me. I’d done lots of performing with out suffering from nerves before… ok, that was 25 years previously…but surely it’s like riding a bike, one never forgets. Wrong.

I rehearsed even more vigorously after the radio gig, and worked out a few more covers along with more of my own songs. It occurred to me that I was rehearsing in a cocoon. I was in a sound proof recording studio either at 9:00 o’clock in the morning or 9:00 o’clock at night. I was getting pretty good and quite consistent, but it was in a vacuum. There was no telephone to ring and nobody to distract me. I felt secure. I was ready for more! Forget nerves. Fear not.

I was talking to my friend John about all of this one evening. Whilst imparting to John the excitement of playing in front of people after so long, and the frustration of not having more gigs to do when I noticed that there was a guy standing next to John listening to us. Sean was friend of John’s and was about to become a friend of mine. After patiently listening for several minutes Sean said that he was organising an acoustic gig at a local tearooms in few weeks time and that I could perform at that if I wanted to. I agreed to do it then and there.

Some weeks later, sure enough, the gig was arranged for a Friday evening April 4th, 2003. The plan was for Russell and myself to do a long set of half Paul Weller tribute songs and half of my stuff. After the radio show I’d decided that the problem was that I was out there on my own and too exposed. Another guitar and a backing vocal would take all of the pressure off me. Weeks passed and Russell and I didn’t find time to get to rehearse together. We lived quite a distance from each other and were both very busy in our Clark Kent disguises.

I continued to rehearse, as a solo until I realised that the gig was only a week away and there was no chance for Russell and I to be ready in time. The songs were ready, but was I? I was nervous of being nervous again. How could I address that? I asked Mike Rutherford to listen to me play a song in the studio. I told him I needed an independent ear to tell me if the balance was ok (which was true), but actually I wanted to see if I could perform with another human being in the room. One person is enough to be an audience. My doubts were confirmed. I struggled to concentrate. The sound was great, but I had trouble keeping my mind on the music. Now that makes performing difficult. Mike didn’t know how much it brought home to me that I had to find a way to get used to an audience in 7 days.

The next night I ran into Keith, who had played drums on 3 tracks of my cd “Cubed”. Keith was a close friend also, and I knew he would understand my problem. I explained the situation and asked if he could sit in the room while I rehearsed for a few days to let me get used to it. Happily for me Keith agreed. I shall forever be in his debt. For 4 or 5 mornings Keith came to the Farm at 9:00 am and sat while I played through the 25 minute set. It was difficult at first, but I got more and more comfortable with him being there. By the 3rd morning he was tapping out little things on the drum set that was there and I asked him to do the gig with me. Keith agreed. Problem solved! We had two more mornings before the gig but by then I found that I had to change the way I was playing things to accommodate Keith. When you’re a solo you can hold out notes and do things very freely in a way that you can’t do when someone else is playing with you. For a start you have to play in time! I had a new thing to be nervous about.

The night before the gig I saw John at a pizza place and we talked about the gig. John said something crucial to me. “Whatever you do, Dale, make sure you enjoy it. That’s what people love to see…musicians really enjoying themselves playing music. They don’t care if you make a mistake, but if you don’t enjoy then neither will they.” Those words stuck with me.

The next day at about 3:00 I was at the gig waiting to get nervous when Keith rang. He had just cut his hand and it was impossible for him to do the gig. I panicked for about 5 minutes. Then I realised that, in fact, this gave me a chance to do what I want to do. That is to play my own songs live on my own. There was only one way to find out if I could do it. Get out there and try it.

By 7:30 the audience was in. We were playing at the Manor Farm Tea Rooms in Seale and it looked great. A very comfortable converted stables or farm building with 60 people who were there to enjoy themselves. They weren’t there to crucify me! I had some butterflies, but butterflies are good. I didn’t have uncontrollable shaking!

Sean played some beautiful flamingo guitar as a duo with Steve. Then a couple of young female singers performed. The audience was very appreciative and it all was going as well as it possibly could when Sean announced that we would have a 15 minute tea break and then I would be on. My friend Graham was attending and came over to talk to me. After awhile, when Sean introduced me to the audience, I realised what Graham had been doing. He was distracting me, and not giving me a chance to think about what I was about to do.

Suddenly, there I was standing at the microphone. I decided that, no matter what, I would look like I was enjoying myself. John’s words came back to me. I started with the same song, Nothing Lasts Forever, that I started with on the radio, but the opening picking went ok. I felt good. By the 8th bar I really was enjoying myself and acting didn’t even come into it. I played for 25 minutes and I made a few mistakes, but I sang well and played well. The song list included It’s Not For Me, Anyway, Half A Mile Away, and Here Comes The Sun by George Harrison for good measure. I nearly told the story of the day I got to spend a couple of hours with George at the Farm, but then I thought it might sound like name dropping! I finished with Oh, Susannah! James Taylor style. Nobody gasped when I made a mistake in Here Comes The Sun and it was a big one. I’m told I said “whoops” and smiled, but I don’t remember that.

When I finished each song the response told me that people liked it. Afterward lots of people said very kind things to me and I knew I’d done well. One thing for sure…. when you come off stage you know if people liked you because they look you straight in the eye with a big smile on their face. That’s what it was like that night. I felt like a million bucks.

Sean and I decided that it went so well that we might try to do another acoustic night at the Manor Farm Tea Rooms and we may even try to give it some identity by coming up with a name for it.