Dead Poets and HEADcrash

Dead Poets were at Word of Mouth on Monday.  I’d never heard them before and they were great, such a good show! It over-ran by half an hour and I didn’t even notice the time.  So, the After Hours open mic didn’t happen til near to 11pm I think, and I didn’t read until around an hour or so later.  I didn’t know I was going until I saw that it was on about five mins before I had to leave so I grab three poems.  I regretted the poems I picked but still it went okay, and Mixy from Dead Poets said he liked it so can’t complain!

A couple of days later I did a gig at HEADcrash at The Birdcage.  I noticed me and my housemate’s face were on flyers for the DJing we’re doing next week which was pretty funny/cool.  I was on just before Tim Clare, so was the penultimate act.  I felt okay as I had a lot of familiar faces and I know the venue well and I enjoyed my performance.

As I’ve seen most of the acts before I thought I’d just mention a couple of names.  Bethan Williams was my favourite poet of the night; I thought her set was very well thought-out and whatever she says, she is pretty and intelligent!  Dan McKee was really funny as well, though he did comedy rather than poetry, it’s always nice to have a laugh.  Tim Clare obviously did a great set… a massive contrast to my own, and he did the one about crazzzzyyyy yeah! Errrm…

Another performer, Andy Bennett came up and gave me some advice, in a really nice way.  I’ll have to take it on board because it was actually the second time I’d got both pieces of advice in a fortnight!  He said that I knew my poems too well to use the paper security blanket, and to speak slower at times.  At The Tea Box gig, Vanessa said I should do my poems by heart, and Anna said she wished she could hear Roots slowed down, so yes, I will take these things on board, they’re kind of things I want to progress too, I guess it’s just more clear now that it’s actually possible.  However, I will probably read some new stuff on next Monday’s open mic so that’s my excuse!

xxx