The catalyst for my first live performance since 1978 was a response from County Sound in Guildford. I’d sent them a copy of Cubed and was pleasantly surprised when I got an email saying that they had played a couple of songs on air. It went on to invite me to play live on air on a “local artists” show.

I had become a “recording artist” over many years so I had a lot practicing to do, but I had worked out a few Beatle tunes while struggling to learn how to play my own songs.

I suggested to County Sound that perhaps I could play a couple of my Beatle covers but the guy cheerily said “oh no, no… we want you to perform three of your own songs”. I said “ok” then put the phone down and panicked. I guess I needed the pressure of a deadline to get me motivated because intense rehearsal became the order of the day.

Two days before the radio show I asked my friend Russell to come and listen to me run through the songs to see if they were going to work. I’d had to do quite a lot of re-arranging and editing to get the three songs into a format that I could play in a solo situation.

Russell was very enthusiastic after hearing the songs and started to strum along when he asked me to replay “The Next Drive”. I hadn’t asked Russell to join me for the gig because I was too nervous and more than a little embarrassed at how simple that song in particular was. Two chords!! I couldn’t ask somebody to strum two chords with me! The recorded version was a very intricate and classy combination of little guitar picking parts that I could not reproduce in a live situation, but the song did work when I dropped all the instrumental passages and concentrated the vocal over a strumming guitar.

When we strummed it together the song became very strong. Russell showed enough interest that I asked him to join me for that song on the radio show. The other two songs were too complicated (more chords!) to prepare in time.

The plan was for me to open with “Nothing Lasts Forever” on my own, then Russell would join me for “The Next Drive” and I would finish with another solo song.

“Nothing Lasts Forever” starts with a fairly intricate picking sequence. Just as my name was spoken the air conditioning came on and an ice-cold gust of air rushed up my back. I was so distracted by that and the nerves of playing to a single person and a mic that I all but froze. I’d never experienced that before, but I simply could get my fingers to do the right thing. In fact, I could not feel my fingers on the strings of the guitar. Now THAT is a problem if you are a solo singer songwriter.

All I could think of was how exposed I was. Every little mistake was magnified logarithmically. What was I going to do?!? Well, I did the only thing I could do. I battled through. Luckily my voice came second nature and I sang pretty well and that saved the day. I was so glad that Russell was there to support me through the second song and then I managed to get through he third song (can’t remember what song it was) without too much bother.

I vowed then and there to never play solo again. I felt too exposed that way. The plan was to become a duo, hopefully with Russell playing second guitar and harmony vocals.

That was not to work out but that part of the story comes in the next instalment…The Big Gig mark 1.