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Phoebe was still staying mainly cheerful despite her ear infection. Her parents were less cheerful about it and even though it was Catie’s turn to take the night duty I still woke up disappointingly early. Hopefully the gradual erosion of my brain will somehow lead to me being funnier. It was somewhat concerning that I felt so exhausted at the start of a five day run of gigs and a lot of long road trips. And having to leave a poorly daughter at home made it more of a wrench. My wife kindly pointed out that I was going to be off earning money to keep the family going. Family may be more important than work, but I need to work to pay for all the stuff. At least now my work has a focus beyond my own self-aggrandisation. Not that self-aggrandisation isn’t still part of it.
Phoebe was feeling ill and annoyed when I tried to say goodbye and didn’t want to be hugged by me, reaching out for her mum. Just the send off I needed to keep me going. Thanks a lot Phoebe, you ungrateful idiot!
The Birmingham Glee is usually one of my banker gigs and I’ve been sold out or close in the last few years, but this year, for some reason, there had been a bit of a drop in numbers. Still enough to have a good night, but a slightly weird development given that most places are selling better. It’s almost certainly due to circumstances beyond my control and just an odd little blip, but stuff like this can make your head dip if you’re not careful. But things are going well if I can be mildly put out that only around 300 have paid to see me.
And they turned out to be a quality audience. Even though it’s only three nights since I’d done the show, I was stretching a little bit for first ten minutes, almost missing important bits out and having to really think about what was coming next, but maybe mildly slowing it down made it better. It was relaxed and fun and I enjoyed the fact that some guys on the front row got their food delivered as I was talking about the horrors of birth and rolling around in faeces.
My brain unfugged and the tiredness lifted after the first few minutes and I really enjoyed myself. It was nice to give a little tribute to Tim, who has been working on the sound desk at the venue for as long as I’ve been coming here (and before) and who is leaving soon. He’s a genuinely lovely and helpful bloke and it’s always great to see a friendly face on tour, when the staff at most venues changes so quickly that you don’t have time to build up a relationship. Making the act feel welcome and appreciated is something that you can’t really put a price on. It doesn’t show up in spreadsheets and has no immediate financial value, but people like Tim give more to a business than an accountant can fathom. The venue will genuinely be diminished by his loss. Good luck to him with whatever he’s doing next. My long term familiar faces on tour might now be only Colin at the Frog and Bucket and Jules and the team at the West End Centre in Aldershot.
But I loved this audience too, both during and after the show. One man was so bamboozled (or drunk?) that when he asked for a photo afterwards he actually turned his back to the phone. I think that maybe he’d become confused because you sometimes have to spin the phone round to do a selfie. He was a lovely chap and clearly a fan of me and my stuff and I can understand befuddlement, because I have been in such a state for the last year and especially the last couple of weeks.
But there was no time to hang around. We’re in Edinburgh tomorrow (which has sold out, which it doesn’t usually do, so swings and roundabouts), so we did some of the drive tonight, arriving in a hotel near Preston some time after midnight.
The AIOTM kickstarter is a quarter of the way there, but we still need about 2100 people to join the throng if we’re going to hit £100K in the next three weeks. Touch and go. My feeling is it’s probably not going to make it, but if we can get it close in the next couple of weeks then we might be able to do it with a final push. All donations big and small are very welcome. And as an incentive (or de-incentive) if we can keep things moving upwards a filmed version of the Motorcycle clothing sketch will be unlocked,
