The Flipside Music Festival

2001-08-16

Peter Michael Rowan (pictured above right and with whom I'm sharing the bill), and Peter MacCalman (who has organised the gigs) turn up. Peter MacC is recording the gig, which means I'll make a ton of mistakes.

Small but perfectly formed audience which I forget to photograph. For the record, though, there is a table of people in front of me an to the rght, which includes the Edinburgh S/S Andi Neate, a couple of possibly European extraction to the left, another Edinburgh S/S called Ewan ??? (in various places) and a bunch of people over by the bar including the American performer JD Hinton who is performing over the way at the Crowne Plaza (he seems to like it and gives me a two-for one flier for his show. I hope to go, but since it will only be me, the two-for-one factor will go to waste. Shame. Perhaps I can get in twice.)

We decide to do alternating sets – I start, then Pete, then me, then Pete, then me, then Pete again to finish. I noodle over the first and last of Pete's songs and he noodles over some of mine (since I use stupider chords than him), which maintains some kind of seamless continuity.

I try out the new ones in the early sets. They're both a bit dour, but it's a afternoon vibe, so it doesn't matter that much.

At one of the segue points I play Gold (with Peter Michael Rowan playing along), which is now my Prime Cover, I suppose. I remember all the words if not the intricacies of the chord progression with its occasional chromatic excursions.

At about half-way through I consider the possibility that I might be dying on my arse, but have absolutely no idea whether this is the case or not. Certainly each song that I play has a profound and very obvious mistake in it – completely fluffed lines, appalling inadvertant chord substitutions –so that the recording will be unusable.

The last set is mainly rockers (or whatever my equivalent would be) – Whose Universe Is It Anyway? (without the complicated bass line), The Things You Get (much faster than I usually play it) and finishing with Comforting Lie with Peter playing along, which is really cool. Redoubles my resolve to find more musicians.