Sometimes, and I know this is hard to believe, Pete and I agree to do a gig not because it will further the future career of Lucy Jane (I love saying that in the third person, like Mariah on the piste), but because we think it will further our life experience. We get to go to things we would not normally be invited to.
Plus of course, we love playing which is the main drag. Hence we recently played at a street party in Brixton where little boys were constantly crawling underneath the stage from the back to the front, and random balloons were spontaneously popping around lamp-posts (this was very good for me – I have a balloon popping phobia which is inconvenient at parties). I was blissfully unaware of the crawling boys, though our friend Jared who was doing the sound did have to grab one of them and drag him out (health and safety measures, not wilful abuse).
There wasn’t a huge amount of time between sound checking and gigging on that one, but generally we do have to find things to do between turning up and playing. Especially since the later you’re on, the earlier you’re supposed to turn up.
I used to fill the time with a steady and copious consumption of prosecco, but an out of body experience during a very seasick sounding Wish You Were Here put paid to that habit.
Sometimes we do watch the other bands play! But sometimes we just see what else is going on and tend to amuse ourselves. Last night was no exception. We played the Bridge Afghanistan benefit and on the way there I found a book. The area where I live is full of middle class people who just leave their unwanted books and DVDs on the pavements for you to pick up for free.
I am now the proud owner of How to Talk To Anybody about Anything…
Written by a New York based city consultant, it literally lists professions and tell you things to ask those who do such professions.
I think the idea is that if you’re a shy person you may not know what to ask people when you meet at first.
No more! You have to read the book and then memorise the questions…(well this is what it says in the how to read this book section – you’re not supposed to put it in your very big coat pocket and refer to it in front of people)
So potential awkward silences (punctuated by cords rubbing together maybe) can now be niftily averted when confronted by, say, a surprise bungee jumper (question 1: What do you jump from?) , Firefighters (what kind of turnout gear do you wear?), computer geeks (Do you use Windows? – seriously!!) and dentists (How are you coping with the OSHA and EPA regulations?) So we asked each other questions from this book, usually me asking the questions and Pete pretending to have many different jobs for hours, and came to the conclusion that once someone had actually answered the question, either shortly (yes, I do have a lap top) or at length, there is a flaw in the book: there is no catch-all follow up question to ask. So as a shy person, you’d just end up going, Oh, right. And then going to the bar.
Other things happened too like Pete walking on stage at the Caribbean Carnival Conference, thinking it was the exit upstairs at the Tab, where someone was paying tribute to a recently deceased organizer, but I’ll write about that another time.
