Getting my head round the concept of fandom

Hi folks – Holly here, checking back in on the Honest Music Blog. I hope you all enjoyed Chris’ offering last week, I sure did. He doesn’t let me read these things until he has spent a lot of time poring over them, reading and re-reading, then when I finally get chance to see what he has come up with it always reminds me of how funny, dry and honest he is. Sometimes I think you forget appreciating something when it’s right there with you all the time, so to be reminded of it once in a while is very refreshing. Thanks Chris. You should be a blogger for a living (and still find time to gig with me, of course). 

This leads me nicely into the subject of this week’s blog. We had a rare January gig this week at the Last Drop Inn, York. When Winter is in full flow, I try really not to book too many gigs, partly because there’s often inclement weather conditions which make it difficult for audience or performers to travel there, or everyone’s just too cold, miserable and skint to come out of Christmas hibernation and you’re playing to nobody. However, happily this was not the case this Tuesday evening! We played a couple of 45 minute sets at the Drop, which is a long gig for us but is a good way to air some songs we play less frequently, in a relaxed atmosphere. Imagine our surprise then, when we turned up expecting a fairly quiet night and waiting for us to play were a couple who had travelled all the way from Rutland in the second week of January to come and watch us. Brilliant! 

Picture: Acoustic encore of Toes, 08 January 2013, Last Drop Inn York

Also in attendance were my friends Matt (birthday boy of the night) and Guy, several of their friends too, the two Irish chaps who work in York during the week and always come to see us if they can, two younger chaps in hoodies who correctly guessed the ‘Name The Artist’ game, our housemate James and of course my ever faithful Mum, along with a whole bunch of other people in the pub who had happened on the gig by accident – as well as the super excellent bar staff, who are always so welcoming to us. 

I am not trying to impress you here with how many people we managed to get to our gig. The point is that human beings are wonderfully surprising creatures. The way I approach gigs at our level is to just get there on time, play as best I can and perhaps introduce our music to a few new ears. I’m never expectant of anything coming from the show because I think if you do that, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. And after each one, I am pretty much instantly thinking of the next one, glowing or otherwise from the experience and thirsty for more. But the more gigs we have done, the more people have seen us and somehow felt a connection with us, enough of a connection to create enduring relationships (ideological or otherwise – I do like to chat). For the past few years, we have been gigging, writing, recording, playing everywhere we can, playing for free, playing for charity, emailing the world and his wife to ask for opportunities to perform or for radio airplay or suchlike. This kind of input from our side is not an instantly gratifying pursuit – often we don’t get replies or there aren’t hundreds of people queuing to buy CD’s at the end of a gig. HOWEVER – all that giving from our side is seemingly coming back to shake our hands further down the line. Just when you think that nobody cares, people actually will show up to support you. Those little seeds we have been planting do occasionally flower and have a habit of doing so just at the right time. 

Tuesday evening at the Last Drop was one of those vintage evenings, full of much laughter, lots of songs and, I assume, lovely beer (I was driving, boo hiss). We even got an encore from our gathered audience, my song Toes which we did completely acoustic as we had turned the PA off. There's a pic above of that. Thank you to everyone who was there this week. And really, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has, or ever has had, any interest in us whatsoever. I am sorry if I sometimes forget people’s names and I’m sorry if sometimes I forget where we have met before, but please know that I truly do appreciate having just a few moments of your brainspace and your heartspace, even once a year or less frequently. I hope that the effort that we put into what we do makes your day a bit better or makes you forget your troubles temporarily. I am going to continue to give whatever I can unconditionally to the world, not in the hope that it will pay off for us in the future, just in the hope of making some sort of positive change somewhere, for someone, at some time. But just this week, it has been really good to reflect on the impact that this positive change has had on the people at our gig – enough positive change to bring them to our show. Our fans. FANS!  :)

And as an extra thank you, here is a video of my version of Joni Mitchell’s gorgeous ‘A Case Of You’. It’s a favourite song of mine and a favourite for several people who were there on Tuesday.

Over and out for now,

H x