Blog: Back At The Lamb

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When I arrived at The Lamb last night it felt like AGES since I'd been there last for a proper Totally Acoustic. The last time I'd been there hadn't been THAT long ago, but it'd been the "dress rehearsal" for My Exciting Life In ROCK rather than the usual FORMAT. Actually, thinking about it, everything ROCK at the moment does rather have the air of gradually returning to normal after The Show, it's a bit like starting a new TERM at school or something.

Anyway, I met Mr J Kell who'd just come HOTFOOT from the LibDem Conference, so I was able to partake of his BRANES. We also discussed the fact that The Lamb just keeps getting SLIGHTLY better - it's always been a really nice pub, but they recently improved it by having GUEST ALES on, and this time it was improved SLIGHTLY MORE by having St Austell Tribute on, which is GRATE!

We were soon joined by Mr S Hewitt, Mrs M Hamilton, The Crisps In My Crisp Packet and the star of the evening, Mr Owen Tromans. It was GRATE to see him again - the thing with Mr Tromans is that when you hear him SING you'd think "LOVELY singing voice, but I bet he's DEAD SERIOUS and SOMBRE and probably wears those angular glasses, also polo neck jumpers." You WOULDN'T expect him to be SUCH a lovely chap, nor to have quite as many opinions about West Brom.

We went upstairs and were soon joined by Mr P Jones, who'd seen me at the Blyth Power weekender and realised that The Lamb was only just round the corner from his work, and a colleague, and thus was the audience COMPLETE. It was a bit of a small turnout, and I felt a bit bad about there not being MORE people there to see Owen, but it did make it a VERY cosy, EXTREMELY chatty evening.

So, off we went, and I did the following on the ukelele:

Glory Days

Billy Jones Is Dead

For some reason I felt EXTREMELY nervouse doing these, and was glad to only be doing a couple of songs before getting off and letting Owen take the stage. He came on and was BRILLIANT - he's got a FANTASTIC singing voice (lots of people can do the singing, but actually a proper Good Singing Voice UTILISED properly is a rare thing) and he sings all these big STORY songs that are a BIT folk, a BIT Math Rock, but a LOT good. It was ENGROSSING and also a bit EXCITING when he burst into GUITAR SOLO, all interspersed with CHAT. EXCELLENT!

There was then the usual beer/toilet/cigs/chat break, before I RETURNED and did THIS:

Better Things To Do

The Stores Of Not To Be

(theme from) Dinosaur Planet

It Only Works Because You're Here

The Peterborough All-Saints' Wide Game Team (Group B)

We're Old And We're Tired (and we want to go home)

The Lesson Of The Smiths

I felt a lot more relaxed by now, and so there was a LOT of chat, ESPECIALLY when I did (theme from) Dinosaur Planet, where the explanation took CONSIDERABLY longer than the song itself. It seemed to go really well, especially the audience joining in with the "Ah-ooh, ah-ooh, ah-ooh" bit in the chorus and, I'm afraid to say, it has made me SERIOUSLY RECONSIDER the idea of writing MJ Hibbett's Musical Version Of Dinosaur Planet PROPERLY ready for next year's Edinburgh...

With all singing DONE it was time for Owen to go and get his train, and for a few brave stragglers to regroup downstairs to talk of ORATORY and POLITICS before wending our weary way home. It had been small, COSY night, and a pretty GRATE one as a result!

posted 17/9/2008 by MJ Hibbett

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