It was around the first week of May on a Sunday evening when Gemma Salter and Stephen Lloyd held another of their excellent “Royal Knees Up” cabaret evenings at the Theatre Royal bar in Stratford. I had been immobilised for weeks beforehand but reckoned I could make it along by getting a minicab there and then just taking it as it comes. I’d signed up through the Facebook group and arranged with Gemma to do a couple of my acoustic Captain Beefheart covers, but when we arrived I was asked to do a longer set than that, as the theme for the evening was going to be acoustic / folky anyway. By Cabaret, it means there are some standup comedy acts on the bill as well, and sometimes weird and wacky stuff. I’ve seen musicians playing to the theatre bar crowd when I’ve been out to see a show at the Theatre Royal – “Reasons to be Cheerful”, “Takeaway”, “Come Dancing” and others, and I must admit to being intrigued by the prospect of playing on that little stage in the corner of the not insubstantial theatre bar area now, with the exterior terrace and carribean food.
Theatre Royal Bar Stage
My allocated time slot was to be either side of the break, so that meant two or three songs, then the break, then come back on and do a few more if I like. A cool way to organise proceeding, I thought fetching a bottle of Becks and choosing a seat with a table and a good view of the stage, so Linda could preserve my set on video with a view to putting it on the podcast later. And here it is:
Download MP3 to save – 40Mb in size, playtime 30 minutes :- 46 Andy Roberts Podcast Episode 46.mp3
Podcast #46 Shownotes
Show Notes for Podcast 45
Waiting
Mazet
Yellow Boat
Grow Fins
Now that I’m Living Here
Winter in Andalucia
The Last Subway Home
After a year and a half of playing regularly at the Golden Lion Romford, totally unplugged, I’m not so well used to singing miked up these days, but the sound check seemed to work fine. Of course things always sound different when there are lots of bodies in a room, to when it is empty and you can never be sure how much noise they are going to make themselves, but Gemma was at the back of the room operating a mixing desk so I could be confident that what was going out through the PA into the room would be at the right levels.
So the source for this podcast’s songs comes from Linda’s stills/video camera which does record in pretty good quality stereo sound in theory, but seated as we were amongst a large group at the tables, it does pick up a lot of background noise which is a little unfortunate and gives a slightly false impression of how the audience behaved on the night. If we’d sat right next to the speakers though, we might not have obtained a good line of sight for the video on youTube, so you can’t have everything. Well, you can but need an external directional microphone of access to the PA soundboard, or a team of engineers….
I played mostly my own songs again, having recently done a whole evening of self-penned material and iIn the event, I only did one Captain Beefheart song, Grow Fins. That went down well so I added in “The Last Subway Home” which can have a similar feel form a performers point of view.
Gemma and Steve are busy starring in 188 , the Jack The Ripper musical in the West End at present so there may not be a Knees Up this month, or last due to rehearsals, but when they do resume it’s a fun evening in Stratford and with free entrance too.
As for my own podcasts, well I’ve taken a bit of a break due to several factors but I’m hoping to resume the regular webcasts soon, either on Bambuser or Google+ Hangouts, which would be very experimental. If you need a Google+ invitation just let me know your email address by one means or another and I’ll send one over and if you’re already on Plus then please circle me at
+Andy Roberts
Don’t break any strings unless you have spares,
Andy Roberts
Subscribe to the podcast RSS or get it from iTunes
