A break in the cloud for the sun

Well. It was rather good evening at this month’s Acoustica on Friday night. Not quite as good a turn-out as for the Martin Stephenson evening last month, but nevertheless a really good time.

First up was Chantelle Pike, whom I’ve seen before but I would best label as “not really my thing”, though I have to say as a performer she was quite charming. Visit her site, you may find she is “your thing”.

Next on was Edd Donovan, who was again very good indeed, introducing some new songs and playing a few that I remembered from last time, and was again accompanied by Mark Peters on second guitar. I spoke to Edd briefly before he was due on and it struck me that he looked quite tense and nervous. It’s kind of bleedin’ obvious really, but it always surprises me, as a complete outsider to the world of performing, that people do of course still get nervous before going on stage. Perhaps I should be grateful that he had the good manners not to tell me to bugger off, instead of politely discussing his World Cup record. For this, if nothing else, I liked the guy and his songs, so it would seem like a good reason to post the other track from his Myspace page, which I mentioned the other day…

A Friend To See Me Through

Ghosting

The main act, however, was Ghosting, who have been together, I believe, as a duet – George and Dan – for a good while, but have recently added a drummer to their ranks, Shane.

Now, I went to school with Shane and we were pretty close friends for quite a number of years, but have kind of drifted apart over recent years. So I was kind of interested to see what Ghosting were like, especially as this was, I believe their first outing as a threesome.

I’ll post here a couple of tracks from a promo cd they’ve put together, which I think I’ve heard elsewhere on their website too, but I should say that they don’t really do the band credit (to my ears at least).

On the night, Ghosting were quirky to say the least, coming on looking as if they were out for night at a rather strange opera, and using a variety of instruments, gadgets and microphones. I like all that sort of thing, me, anything to make me look at a song in a new way is a gimmick well used as far as I’m concerned. They also had one of those rather clever loop pedals which allowed them to build up layers as they are going on. And in the last song (I forget the name – something about monsters under the bed), they had a lot of fun looping sounds, and eventually walking off, leaving the various loops furiously bouncing off each other. It was all done with some humour, and it left me smiling. As I mentioned, this was their first time on stage with the present line up, and you have to say it was a little ragged in places, but first class entertainment nonetheless.

In fact to be honest I prefer things a little frayed around the edges, which is why I say that these two rather well-produced recordings I’m posting here don’t really tell you how much fun Ghosting are to see live. I kind of hope they don't get too well-rehearsed, or it might not be quite as enjoyable as this evening was.

Wanting to end with the girl

The Devil is harder to please than you think