Blog: Totally Acoustic Returns

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I arrived last night at The King & Queen to find TWO signs that the return of Totally Acoustic was going to be FINE. First of all there were a couple of POSTERS up on the walls, demonstrating that the pub was ready for us, and secondly, in front of the posters, were The Acts On My Bill and Mr S Hewitt, having BEER. Everything, I thought, will be GOOD!

And I must say, I was RIGHT. We went upstairs and got the tables set up then sat back and chatted whilst A Little Orchestra variously arrived. Othe people ALSO arrived and by 7.30pm we were getting nicely FULL ready a hearty sing through The Theme Tune before it was time for the ORCHESTRA (I know they're CALLED "A Little Orchestra" and I've seen them several times BEING an orchestra but the fact that they ARE an orchestra continues to amaze me!) to strike up. They started with the theme from Twin Peaks, which sounded BEAUTIFUL - it's amazing being in such a small room with so much music going on, you can hear all kinds of melodies wafting by, and the fact that it IS all acoustic means you're hearing instruments being played at the volume they were BUILT to be heard at. It was fantastic!

Halfway through the set, after two orchestra members had done some lovely Proper Singing, some drunken twit got up and bellowed THREE songs of his own compostion. We started off with Billy Jones Is Dead and I noticed that everything seemed a bit quieter than it had done at practice in the Community Centre the other week. Maybe it was less echoe-y, but I found i didn't have to SHOUT quite as much. It may have been this level of THORT that made me get a bit confused - after the second chorus I thought "Wow! How lovely! They've added an extra section at the end of the song!" and stood listening to it appreciatively... before realising that it was actually the middle eight and I was meant to be singing. Oops. I've only done that song about 500 times, you can't expect me to remember how it goes...

Next we did It Only Works Because You're Here, which was LOVELY to do - I'm still hearing new bits in the arrangement and i LOVE it when everyone stops and I do the extra long "Iiiiiit Ooooooo-nly" bit. SMASHING. And then a Krazy DREAM came true as we did One Last Party, a song I NEVER thought I'd EVER get to play live, especially not in a way so CLOSELY ALLIED to the way we recorded it. It had an ORCHESTRA! Did I mention that already?

After the usual break we moved from ORCHESTRA to THEATRE - it was a WELL sophisticated night out - as me and Steve launched once more into Moon Horse which ROCKED along at high speed. I'm always amazed that we get to the end so soon, even after nine months of doing the show I still REALLY REALLY enjoy it, there is a LOT of room for larking about and hi-jinks. Something else that surprises me is how the TOPICALITY changes every time too - sometimes it feels like The Price Of Your Mistake is YESTERDAY'S news, but last night it felt BANG up to the minute, and the whole "Lazer Cannons On The Moon" bit felt like SEARING SATIRE. Unfortunately, as so often happens, I was so busy thinking about how i might make REMARKS (despite the fact that there's never TIME for REMARKS) I did forget a few bits of a couple of songs, but we DID warn people beforehand that this might happen, so I think it was OK.

With the show over we settled into CHAT and BOOZE, and I found myself sat with Steve and Mr Charlie Flowers, Mr Jonathan Yes and Mr Keith Top Of The Pops. It was like a BEST OF for people to sit in the pub with, and probably explains why I ended up thinking it was a good idea to try several different WHISKIES to "top off" the evening. ONE whisky at the end of the evening is FINE, it turns out, more than that is a bit SILLY.

THUS you find me today somewhat the worse for wear, but VERY happy with an EXCELLENT evening. Totally Acoustic is MAGIC!

posted 11/11/2011 by MJ Hibbett

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