Blog: Stylish Lewisham

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I tell you what, they do things in STYLE down in South East London. I turned up yesterday morning at The Fox & Firkin for FOXFEST, to find it being run WELL PROPER. There were TWO stages, one at either end of the pub, with SOUND being mixed from a central SOUND PLAZA, there was a BIG SCREEN TV in the middle of the room, there was a COMPERE (Mr J Yeah) with a RADIO MIKE wandering the room, there were WALKIE TALKIES in the HATS of the CREW, there was a SCHEDULE, and there was a BACKSTAGE AREA with fruits, sandwiches, and tea making facilities. It was, in fact, a PROPER FESTIVAL!

I was MOST impressed. It really is a LOVELY scene down there it has to be said, they've got several promoters, a GRATE studio, and even their own radio station, PLUS some dead good bands. I was only around the see Fruit Machine Blues, but by HECK they were ever so good. My set seemed to go OK too - I've not got the setlist with me now but it was yr standard Uberset, which was a LOT of fun to play, especially a slightly extended DASH through "Boom Shake The Room" at the end. I am ARTISTICALLY DIVIDED about this though - on the one hand I do tend to be playing to different people most of the time, and it IS nice to do a set that i KNOW usually works and that i feel comfortable with, but on the other hand i wonder if i might be CHEATING people a bit, and maybe should try some different songs now and again?

We're doing a few gigs in the new year in a slightly reduced Validators line-up, to MAXIMISE ROCK while MINIMISING...er... babysitting... so hopefully that'll be a chance to SHAKE UP the setlist, though i believe my NEXT two gigs, in That America and New Zealand will PROBABLY be derived from The Comfort Zone. Crikey, this time tomorrow we'll be on the way to the AIRPORT, exciting isn't it?

posted 20/11/2005 by MJ Hibbett

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