I committed a
musical crime at last night’s Mostly Comedy.
It was as I was
clearing Mark Morriss' guitar, pedal and leads from the stage in the interval after his excellent acoustic set that I was struck with the idea to do it.
On posting the video to Twitter (and tagging him in it) I instantly regretted it;
the last thing I wanted was him to think I thought that song was the sum-total
of what he’s about, particularly when we’d booked him as a solo artist, but
he’s a good humoured chap, so I thought, “Sod it”.
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| Doggett, Morriss, Monkman and Ephgrave at Mostly Comedy (22.06.17) |
Outside of
stealing Bluetones’ members' instruments, it was a splendid night. I was
pleased that the atmosphere was nicer than at Mark’s last appearance, which was very early into us running the club at the venue, when a late start-time, a boiling-hot room and an
hour-long show in front of his set made things feel a little tense. This was
our fault as we hadn’t programmed it right; Mark was a
gentleman and still played brilliantly, but Glyn and I both felt
frustrated with how things turned out.
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| Mark Morriss at last night's gig, before I tarnished his guitar with my very presence. |
Last night’s
crowd were far more savvy and clearly relished the opportunity to see him in an
intimate space. Our sound guy Paul mixed things perfectly so it sounded great -
and, as before, Mark was witty, on good form and happy to chat with his
fans and with us. Yet again, it reminded us of how we’d like to reintroduce more music acts to the night like we used to, as it makes things interesting
and really works.
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| Quincy, last night. |
Mark wasn’t the
only act to grace the Sun's rickety rostra last night; we also
had sets from two Mostly Comedy favourites, Quincy and Paul Harry Allen,
with the former doing a customarily warm stand-up spot and the later presenting
the first performance of his two-hander farcical comedy The Blade of Barrington
with the equally charismatic Katie Pritchard. In a way, Katie and Paul had
the rougher end of the deal, as doing a full show after Mark was a hard
ask when things had pushed late (and when some of the audience perhaps
hadn’t taken on board they'd be seeing anything other than Mark that night) but
they still did a great job. Their show was bursting with different characters and
good gags; I'll look forward to seeing it properly in a theatre space.
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| Paul Harry Allen and Katie Pritchard in 'The Blade of Barrington'. |
Glyn and I pulled
out our Top Ten ‘Take a Break’ Headlines for the first time in ages (e.g. “My Baby
Had No Eyes, But I Thought He Was Sleeping”) and I did some new material that
got some laughs, which was good, as it suggests it’s something else I can slip
into my new show. So all in all, it was a success, acoustic-pinching
endeavours notwithstanding.