Blog: A Particularly Classy Evening

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A classy evening got off to a classy start last Thursday, as The Passengers In My Vehicle and I got a BLACK CAB to The King & Queen, where Totally Acoustic was due to occur. To be fair to us, we weren't doing it JUST to be dead swanky (although it WAS all rather auspicious), we had GEAR as well. A couple of weeks before Ms E Kupa had got in touch to ask if I could find an acoustical bass for her band to use for the evening and Mr K Top Of The Pops had leapt in to lend me one, so we had TWO guitars with us. So yes, we were basically being swanky.

We got in, got set up, and welcomed our guests along with JUST the right number of people to make the upstairs room LOVELY. Suddenly it felt like a rather delightful summer's evening, with windows open and late sunshine beaming through. The idyllic scene was, however, quickly spoilt by ME getting on stage and forcing everyone into a rousing version of the theme song, before doing the following:

I Am A Hipster

Can We Be Friends?

(You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock

This was the DEBUT for I Am A Hipster, a song I wrote for London Calling, the new show from my WRITING GROUP. I told you it was a classy evening! I followed up with a couple of songs from the new album (as I've been listening to the mixes this week) and it all seemed to go OK.

I then stepped aside and introduced Mr Ben Moor to the stage. GOLLY but he is a class apart, just listening to him makes you feel as if you're having Vitamin C for your BRANE. All of his stuff is incredibly rich in thought and words and wordplay and makes you nervous to LARF too often in case you miss something clever wrapped up in the next couple of syllables. He did some (GRATE) new stuff and then finished with a section of 'Each Of Us', his most recent show which we'd seen at Edinburgh in 2013. It felt like I remembered every word, and enjoyed it all over again. Summary: He was amazing!

And then, after a beer break, things kept on in a very similar, yet also very different way i.e. it stayed AMAZING but this time it was due to Emma Kupa and her big band. As well as her guitar and the acoustic bass mentioned earlier she had banjo, shaker and DRUMZ all going. It sounded BEAUTIFUL. I'm always happy to bang on about the fact that acoustic instruments are DESIGNED to be the correct volume when they're played together, but maybe next time I feel the need to rant about it I'll just play the tape of this gig instead. The best bit was when everyone started singing at the same time, it sounded GORGEOUS. Also the songs were ACE - everyone says how she's got a unique voice but she's also got a unique way of using it, singing complete sentences like she's talking but also like some strange folk music from terrifying places. AND WITH TUNES. Summary: Also amazing!

As you can probably tell, I rather enjoyed it, and was extremely PROUD to be presenting such delights at my gig. I celebrated the brilliance of the whole event by drinking a pile of BEER before hopping into another black cab and then getting the train home, where I was delighted/RELIEVED to find that this time it had all been recorded properly too. HOORAH! Also, PHEW!

posted 8/6/2015 by MJ Hibbett

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