Gig 26 would be my 2nd
MC slot at the Madness of King George, this time there would be only 3
comedians rather than the 4 we had last time. The acts were Jed Salisbury, Dave
McAndrew and Andy Woolston all now familiar names from recent gigs.
I would also be
gigging with all 3 of the same guys on Tuesday in Tyldesly near Manchester but
more on that later.
Madness of king George
was now moved to a Saturday and was a ticketed event with tickets costing £5
but £2.5 per ticket was going to the act that the ticket payer was coming to
see thus making an opportunity for the acts to earn a little (there was also
meant to be a flat fee for the MC but it was not discussed....so it was quite
flat...zero!! i’m not good at negotiations)
The comedy was due to
start at 8 but there were only 4 people in at 8 so we waited til half past and
by then around 20 or so were in.
I tested some new
material while trying to gauge the level of the room and warm them up for Jed
who would be on 1st, i struggled to make any impact at all, i tried
chatting to a few but a mixture of them not wanting to be chatted to and my not
being experienced in the MC role (hence the flat fee of zero and why it was not
pursued) made it hard work, eventually i got the room to a luke warm level and
was able to bring Jed on.
Jed immediately
injected the much needed energy and was on form, the beauty of having him on
the bill is he will always lift the crowd and tonight was no exception, a great
set met by warm applause.
I then made a faux pas
in that i MC’d into an interval an mc should not do any compeering into an
interval as it is warming them up for nothing.... just eagerness to get something’s
out of my head quickly was my excuse but the jokes were sadly wasted and we
went to a break.
Dave Mac performed 1st
after the break and this is when the gig began to become a struggle, Dave was
doing great, his set was going smoothly but as Leeds Acoustic normally run
music nights they without any intention to cause problems allowed guests and
one of the bands to enter midway through Dave’s set, this may have not been an
issue but they then decided to attempt to heckle Dave distracting his rhythm,
Dave dealt with it admirably but there was an edge to the night now and i tried
to win the room back, but as there were now nearer 45/50 in i had to re MC the
room, go through the rules of comedy again, no talking phones off no heckling
as all acts are new and working Saturday night for free yadda yadda, sadly i
was ignored and Andy Woolston had to deal with some people who were in dickhead
mode! I must offer huge praise to him for not only getting through his set but
twice winning back a room that was disturbed by one of the bands due to perform
later (who again i’m sure were not doing it on purpose) if fact at one point
one of the bands supporters said he would quote ‘arse rape this comedian if he
doesn’t get funny’ now i know that shows a level of articulation and education
that would suggest this heckler was quite worthy of his point but don’t let
that fool you he was a tool!!! Andy did superb rounding off the comedy.
I stayed and Mc’d the
bands who all were great in differing ways and although Dave tried to return
fire on the heckling at the band causing most of the issue for the comedy we
all agreed they were actually very good and therefore recommend watching them.
The night itself needs
to be tweaked a bit more if comedy is going to thrive, no act deserves to be
heckled or confronted and people entering the room mid set needs to stop, i.e
the event starts at 8, if you don’t arrive at 8 tough luck wait til the break
to enter or leave basically. Leeds Acoustic are good guys though so i’m sure we
will work it out.
Gig 27 saw me return
to Tyldesley this time with Jed, Andy and Dave (last time i went alone)
Tyldesley is a great gig
and an awkward one at the same time, it’s great because A, Kenny who runs it is
a top bloke, accommodating friendly and a good MC, and B, the venue look after
the acts, free coffee, free drinks from the bar (as long as its not abused) and
biscuits.... foxes biscuits not Aldi’s imitation either!!. The awkwardness
comes from the room layout, there is a row of fixed seating separating the
people at the back of the gig and they therefore feel like it is ok to talk and
heckle.
We already had our
worries about the gig as it was the same day as England’s final Euro group game
v Ukraine and if things go bad for England they could go worse for us. But alas
England won (although apparently despite winning the group and not losing a
game they are still rubbish according to some people) and so the room began
filling up with punters ready for a bit of comedy. Amongst the crowd was a
bloke who looked like the weight of his stupidity had caused his head to crush
his neck, a man who’s love for Man utd was inked on his body, with him was a
bloke who looked like he had rohypnolled himself and who spoke words that made
little sense almost as if he was just reading out the 9 randomly selected
letters in countdown as they appear and not as an attempt at a word,
accompanying tweedle dum and tweedle dumber was a man with a stare that belongs
in an asylum... so they were going to behave right??? Wrong!!!
The running order was
Bobby Murdoch then Jed, break, Myself, Dave then Andy followed by headline act
Jamie Sutherland.
I will not go into to
much detail of the gig other than to say i was worried to go on after being
offered the threat if im not funny..i’m dead!!! From no neck... thankfully he
was shaking my hand and smiling at the time! He also made me promise not to
talk to him but gave me no choice as he heckled me immediately!! I did my 8
mins (of which 4 mins was different from last time i was there) and then got
off the stage asap!!
I thought all the
other acts had stronger performances than me, in fact i did not want to go on
at one point as Jed had done so well i didn’t think i could follow especially
with a similar bit (not the same tho) and jed delivered his bit far better than
i could do mine!
Andy was typically
enjoyable and cool as he went about his set but Dave Mac was the star tonight
ripping into no neck for 8 of his 10 mins!!!
Another great night
out doing comedy could have been even better as we were invited to a party by
one of the audience... a party that didn’t seem to actually exist but we were
invited none the less... groupie!!! However i declined the invitation and
instead headed off home using the journey home to help Dave think of witty
texts to send to Jed in the role of Jed’s mum.... but that’s a whole other
blog!!!
Next for me an
impromptu invitation very last min to take part in pigeon hole.
No comments:
Post a Comment