gig Archives - CRAIG WESTWOOD

Pickles Fest

Craig — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 18:31:00 +0000

This was a long standing invite from old friends ‘Red’ and Heather Pryce, for their Annual festival in Cenarth, near Cardigan, in West Wales. Because of the overly hot summer, this had been cancelled from it’s original July date, because fire-risk (and lack of water supplies in case of fire) had prevented the Festival from going ahead.

Anyway, on the back of my successful gig at Electric Cabaret, Claire and I planned to do the five hour drive South West-wards, plus dog Sophie, as we were going to stay with Pat and Chris, Heather’s parents, afterwards. I’d planned for an early start, as this would give us plenty of time for stops, dog walks, and chance to stop at Pat and Chris’s, freshen-up, and upload some of the gear from the car. At least, that was the plan…

First of all, as I went to fill up the car, I noticed we had a puncture. “No worries,” I thought, as there’s a tyre repair station in our village. Luckily, it opens at 8am, and it was just 8:02. Anyway, within just over half an hour, I was filling up with fuel, but also, having to re-pressurise my tyres, as the repairers had more-than over-inflated my newly fixed tyre…

It was now 9am. I get home to find Sophie has diarrhoea, and won’t eat. We have a ritual where I give her dog treats to encourage her to eat something, and then, after her stomach settles, she’ll eat something. Today it wasn’t going to work. So, by 9:45, we decide to set off, wondering if we were due for ‘doggie accidents’ on the way. Fortunately for us, she settled.

Driving rain for most of the journey made this trip arduous, as well as slow. We find out after ringing Chris, that my set has been brought forward to 15:50, and I’m first on stage. We finally arrived at 15:25. Enough time for me to carry gear to the stage, to do a quick sound check, and then start playing.

Again I kept my set short, and though I could have had 45 minutes I ended at 35. My arm had had enough, what with all of the driving as well. Lovely to catch up with our friends and watch the other acts, some very talented performers, including Big Joe Bone, and of course Red’s own band: Red and the Hogweeds.

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Electric Cabaret

Craig — Sun, 02 Sep 2018 10:14:00 +0000

Despite the injury, the physiotherapy is helping enough for me to continue to do short sets like the 30 minute one at Electric Cabaret at the Old School House, Barnsley, an extension of ‘Cabaret Doonican’, run by the enigmatic Scott Doonican of the Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican. Usually, the night is split to allow four acts to perform a half hour set each, and a donations box provided fro the audience to contribute towards their appreciation of the acts performing, which is divided up at the end.

All I can say is, I’m pleased the set wasn’t any longer. By the end of the last song, my upper arm was extremely painful and stiffening up. But enough moaning… I’m happy I can still play at all!

Very grateful to those who turned up to support me, including my wife Claire, who took some video (coming soon), and Dave Wilde of Wilde Sammon, and grateful too for all the help and encouragement with my set, including Scott, and Marcus, who really does a great job behind the mixing desk, making everyone sound as good as can be, plus a shout out to Amanda (Scott’s other half) for divvying-up the proceeds at the end.

Hope to do another one soon!

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Cabaret Doonican – 2nd Outing

Craig — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 11:22:00 +0000

Thanks to Dave Wilde, of the band ‘Wilde Sammon’, and a good mate, he reminded me about Cabaret Doonican at the Old School House in Barnsley on Thursday, and, despite being full of hay fever at the moment (yuk), I decided I’d dose up on the antihistamines and go on over.

When I arrived, I saw a rather worried Scott Doonican, who told me that despite getting a huge number of acts on my last visit two months ago, for last month’s open mic, the one I couldn’t attend due to a chest infection, only one act turned up. This catastrophic lack of support almost cancelled the show for good, and Scott was under threat that if the show didn’t attract enough performers and punters this week, it’d be the last.

Fortunately I was one of five acts that put on a show, including two bands, Wilde Sammon, and Indecision, and that was enough to let this great little venue keep running live music.

Scott has videoed ‘Ebbs and Flows’ from my set, and some from the other guys too. Link here to Cabaret Doonican’s Facebook page

Any one in the area thinking of playing at an open mic, or just like watching live music, try out Cabaret Doonican… It’s a great setup, with it’s own stage, lighting, and where performers aren’t talked-over during the set (one of my pet hates). And a great Team with Marcus on sound, Scott as Host, and Amanda, who takes a lot of photos on the night. Huge gratitude to the work they put in behind the scenes, making us look and sound good.

Cabaret Doonican is stopping for the Summer break, and resumes first Thursday in September.

Scott’s other event: ‘Electric Cabaret’ is on a Thursday towards the end of the month. I’m booked in to do a set on 30th August (re-scheduled from July because of the World Cup footy). Same Venue.

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Cabaret Doonican – 1st Outing

Craig — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 10:45:00 +0000

Great shot from Cabaret Doonican, April 5th

I’d been meaning to go and join in the open mics at The Old School House in Barnsley for a while, at the invitation of my friend Dave Wilde of ‘Wilde Sammon’, as he and bandmate Chris Sammon are pretty regular visitors there. I’ve attended a couple of charity fundraisers there already, purely as a spectator, and I was really impressed with the stage and the set up.

Cabaret Doonican is hosted every first Thursday of the month, and run by Scott Doonican, a guitarist and singer/performer himself, who literally races around most of the evening making sure the acts are informed of the running order and explaining the set up. This takes place in the back room at Old School House, which has a permanent stage setup with really good lighting and p.a..

For Cabaret Doonican there are tables arranged for acts and visitors to sit and watch, a bar open in a room at the side which keeps bar noise away from the stage. Talking during the performances is discouraged, out of respect to the performers, and if someone is talking too loudly, they’ll politely be asked to go into the other (main) bar away from the music. Result! There’s nothing worse than playing to a bar full of people who really aren’t interested, or watching the faces of an audience who want to listen to you but can’t hear much because of the noise of others. Either way, this set up gets rid of the disinterested.

As there were so many acts crammed into the evening, I was asked to perform just three songs, all I must say went down really well. A couple of the other performers came across to me afterwards to say how much they enjoyed my set. It was so nice to feel welcomed.

Scott’s wife (Amanda) was taking photos of all the performances and took some cracking shots of my set, one of which I’m using here, and on social media right now… Very grateful for the share!

All in all a great evening, and a fabulous venue for performers of all genres wanting a polite, respectful and encouraging audience. I definitely will be going back again!

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Open Mics

Craig — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 18:34:00 +0000

These have been such a great way of building confidence, that I would recommend open mics to anyone wanting to get into performing their own material. I’ve been very fortunate to have the support of Andrew organising a great many of these.

Just lately these have been once a week at least, having at least a half-hour slot (and sometimes a whole hour) at the Dandy Lion in Heckmondwike. It’s got a great atmosphere there, and the audience are pretty polite most of the time, and will listen, and not just talk or shout over you (not that playing over a loud chatty audience isn’t a good learning experience in itself!).

The news this week is that the Dandy Lion Acoustic Sessions are maybe coming to a close, and that would be a shame. I’ve been looking forward to Monday nights. That’s been quite a change from the pre-stage nerves I used to get, not so long ago.

There’s still a once-a-month session at the Cross Keys in Liversedge to look forward to. But it looks like I need to go and seek out a few more to attend…

I’ll keep you posted.

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Acoustic Solstice

Craig — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 21:27:00 +0000

A great all-day event, with three stages going on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far…

Hosted and organised by Pete Long, who does the Acoustic Circus open mics on Sundays, it had a great atmosphere with a pretty full pub, and plenty of drinks flowing!

My set began around 6:30 in the end, a little later than scheduled, and though we had a few feedback issues to begin with, and lost most of the impact of the first song, Audacity, the rest of the set went down ok I think. With the temperature at 34 degrees outside, and even hotter inside, for the blokes, shorts and T-shirt was the only way to perform without melting!

Thanks to Andrew, who watched on and lent a hand on the mixing desk when the guitar started to feedback, and got me sorted for the rest of my set. Once my set was done, we walked through to the main bar stage where firstly Francesca “Frankie” Turton was playing her songs, and straight after that, Zoe Beech. Great to see two other 360 acts gaining more strength with their songs.

Zoe and Andrew play their set

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Acoustic Circus Session

Craig — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 17:08:00 +0000

Nice pic from Andrew’s perspective… Me with Purple Hair!

Acoustic Circus Session is the title of the Open Mic event run regularly at the Taproom in Batley. Hosted by guitarist and singer Pete Long, the Taproom is a great little venue with nice acoustics which will hold about 80 when full. I was impressed with the sound quality when listening to the other acts singing and performing, though I had a couple of issues on the last bit of my second set when a dirty volume ‘pot’ on the P.A. started to crackle out. I just soldiered on and kept playing while Pete did his best to sort things out, which was done fairly quickly, but it definitely needs a clean up for next time.

Feedback from Andrew was very good. He was pleased with the way which I coped, even with the technical issues, and he had no complaints with my playing or my confidence on stage. I have a couple of things to work on in terms of the dynamics of one or two of the songs, which we can work on over the next few weeks. But as we’re coming to the end of our contract, I am now mindful of the fact that we still have 5 songs to complete, mix and master by April.

Lots to do. Watch this space…

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