Shambling Gratitude 2015

Thanks to Holly for driving, and making me feel better about the bug from which I was just about recovered…I love how relaxed medical professionals are about illness, really puts the mind at ease.

Thanks to all at Rebel Soul on Friday night.  Thanks to the people who queued patiently to talk to me and/or buy CDs, the people who sang along, the people who danced and the people who brought their children to see me. 

Thanks to the old friends I haven’t seen for years that I saw from the stage.  It was great to see youse, and a shame we didn’t catch up after.

Thanks to Jack and Martin all the crew.

Thanks to Grammatix for giving me my scheduled dancing-on-my-own-in-a-massive-crowd-at-a-festival moment.  Love those.

Thanks to Jimi Needles for inviting me onstage with him at the Social Club on Saturday night.

Always a good time dancing with Mr Saturday Night…Thanks to the crowd that partied with us, especially those who responded to the shout: “Make some noise if you’ve had a healthy bowel movement in the last 48 hours!”

Thanks to the fella who ran after me outside The Social Club to say that his friend was digging my style on stage.  He was quite insistent I meet her.  It’s the first time I’ve been given the “my mate likes you…” line for twenty years or so. 

Thanks the woman herself for looking suitably mortified by the whole thing.  I didn’t stay long enough to find out if the geezer just thought it was hilarious, or if she was genuinely digging the style.  I just shook her hand and said “Hello, you look as embarrassed about this as I am”.  (Or I might have just thought it.)

For the record, I was flattered, but not interested. 

Thanks to Akala for a masterclass in rockin the mic.  It would be a treat to take all the impressionable young MCs I’ve seen over the years to see him doin it right.  Education, yo.

Thanks to Captain Hotknives, for hangin with us at the PFR, and especially for his set at Wandering Word.  His songs are hilarious, and there’s devastating truth in there – more than is immediately apparent.  The dude is naturally hilarious, but there’s more to him than meets the eye.

Thanks to Anna Freeman for her set at Wandering Word, and Jim Evans for his.  They were funny and inspirational and foot-tappin’ and relaxing respectively.

Thanks to Cat for the battery, the insane whisky drink and the encouragement. 

Thanks to K-Dawg for the pasta.  (And sorry for burning the rice, everyone…)

Thanks to all the people who did the cooking and washing up.

Thanks to the woman who stood at the front and cried on Saturday night.  I’ve often talked about making people cry, but when it happened, right in front of me…I didn’t really know what to do.  Always the way, innit?

Thanks to the people who sat at my feet and talked all through our set on Friday night.  It was cool, I just talked over you.  Literally and figuratively.

Thanks to Ben and Richie and Nick from the Spanner crew for watching me and The Boys From Marketing on Saturday night.  Thanks to everyone who was there, it was a Classic – Massive Thanks to The Boys, who were superb.  Really smashed the back end out of it, yeah?  #marketing

Thanks to Martin, the sound engineer from Rebel Soul, for coming to the PFR to fix the piano.  The sustain pedal simply refused to sustain.  I had done my best, but stroking my chin and saying “Hmmmm….” didn’t seem to help much.  And no matter how many suggestions people made, my non-committal “yeah, could be…” didn’t provide a solution, or even identify the problem.  But Martin just took the thing apart and sorted it.  Good work, fella.

Thanks to everyone who makes Shambala the best festival to be at.

I’ve said so many times how great the PFR is, so I won’t repeat myself too much, but….

Thanks to whoever and whatever caused the power cut on Sunday night.  Thanks to Alba (a benevolent force of nature) and everyone else for immediately kicking off the a capela singalong. 

Thanks to the People of The People’s Front Room for responding so enthusiastically to my call and response chants.  The best were:

“We’re the folk that make folk music!”                                          

“We don’t need no generator!”

“We have power in our voices!”

“Thomas Edison was a wanker!”

And Thanks to the unidentified voice that suggested: “There’s only one Nikolai Tesla!”

Thanks to James, Tom and Alba for the harmonies that left us all in a pool of dewy-eyed awe on the Front Room floor. 

When they sang A Change Is Gonna Come, I was in bits.  If I’m sounding mawkish and cheesy, it’s because I’m not used to expressing myself so openly.  It really was a very beautiful moment, and a massive privilege to be so intimately involved in it. 

Thanks to James for singing In The Aeroplane Over The Sea with me.  I heard a few others singing along in the dark, so Thanks to them as well.  Thanks to everyone for laughing but then listening to the “French horn solo!”  (I actually played it on mandolin, of course.  And I think it’s a trumpet solo on the record…)

The PFR is always a joy; on Sunday night, it reached new heights. Really, I can't articulate the feeling....and I'm quite articulate.

Thanks to Sarah and her family and everyone else who makes it what it is.

THANKS EVERYONE.

(We never found out what caused the power cut.)