Well, that was a mixed bag for sure!!
The event itself is a fantastic initiative in a small Lancashire town where every pub, church, library, coffee shop and scout hut open their doors to musicians to fill the town with music for a weekend.
Like with its sister event, Chorley and Longton live, the event attracts thousands of visitors which is a huge boost to local businesses.
Friday
I arrived in Penwortham after working my day job on a gloriously hot, sunny weekend in May. The village was buzzing and there was a really nice atmosphere throughout! Over the Friday and the Saturday, I had 4 performances scheduled at 4 different venues and although I don’t always plan a setlist for a gig, I wanted to challenge myself to play entirely different songs for each of the sets!
I am fortunate to have a fairly large back catalogue of songs and have a number of covers I can draw upon when in need so it felt like it would be possible!
My first gig was in a scout hut near the village centre and my carefully laid plans quickly went out of the window as the first band that were on were a group of local teenagers playing indie covers with a full drum kit and electric set up. I felt like playing lovely fingerpicked songs acoustically after that would be a bit of an anticlimax so the set list went out the window… It was a pretty tough gig for me as a lot of the people in the venue were friends or parents of the lads who played before who were understandably excited and full of adrenaline after their set and people wanted to talk to them / congratulate them. It is a recurring problem faced by small bands and artists and I felt I did as well as I could despite the noise / distraction.
If the first gig was a struggle, the second was the exact opposite! I was playing in a pub on the road out of the village, so I had assumed this would be the more rowdy affair and had planned my set accordingly… And then I arrived! The pub was split into two rooms, a tap room where a regulars were holding quiet conversations whilst looking through to the main room at the performers, and a larger room with a stage and a crowd who were there to listen to music! The guys playing before me were part of a band from the Preston area but had reinvented their songs to play acoustically with a cajon as percussion… so I screwed that set list up as well!
I really enjoyed playing here and managed to play some of the songs I originally intended for the scout hut to a good reception. I was especially happy to see my cousin in the audience as it was the first time she had been able to come and see me play and was good to catch up afterwards with a pint!
Saturday
The Saturday was equally glorious weather wise and I started the day full of hope and optimism… only for that to be dashed when Manchester United lost to Chelsea in the cup final, which frankly was devastating, especially in a pub full of Liverpool fans!!!
My first set of the day was in the newly opened Bon Bon’s coffee shop and this was easily my favourite venue and favourite gig of the weekend. The shop is situated in a lovely, peaceful garden and with its French windows open, my music was able to play out into the street and attract passers by! This time, having had the time on the previous day to scout out the venues, the planned set worked perfectly and I focused on some of my more introverted work with some beautiful acoustic songs which all seemed to go down really well. It is not often that I play such a reserved show and the audience was fantastic.
However… the final gig can only be described as a catastrophe! It was the gig I was most excited about as it was in the biggest pub in the area and I was the headline act. The set I had planned for the night included a couple of cover songs to keep people interested as well as some of my more catchy and upbeat songs.
Once again, I was undone by the band who played before me… I say band but it was really a guy playing electric guitar and a girl with an Amy Winehouse esque voice belting out covers of pop songs and given the level of intoxication of the audience, I knew straight away I was in trouble!
I hastily googled some chords for some of the more popular songs I felt I knew well enough to wing it, scribbled then down on a scrap of paper to put on the floor and hoped for the best… As predicted, the songs I literally improvised after a brief look on the internet went down a storm - there was raucous singing to Dancing In The Dark - but the second I played something they didn’t know, the audience went about their business, which was to drink… heavily! The noise in the pub was overpowering and despite the best efforts of the sound engineer, my poor little acoustic guitar (and poor little throat) was struggling to compete. I battled on regardless and even though very few will have actually heard the full set, it was pretty good! I left in a daze, with a throat full of razor blades and blood streaming down my fingers from the multiple lacerations caused by how hard I was hitting the strings!
The weekend was certainly a learning curve and although I was proud of how I managed to adapt to the situations that presented themselves to me, it made me think I definitely need a few more “plan B’s” in my repertoire just in case! Either way, it was a great event and one that I will definitely look to take part in at some point in the future!
