My Thoughts on The Lullabys Love, Loss and Hope Tour 2010

It’s two weeks since the final show of The Lullabys tour and although I’m enjoying the rest I’m already missing the buzz that only music can give me.

The Constitutional Club in Bury St Edmunds was sold out. People – our fans! – entered to candlelit tables, many of them greeted by myself and Brett. I’m glad I took the time to stand back and take it all in, watching the place fill up. You could sense the anticipation. We had created this. I looked at Brett and told him we must remember moments like this, sentimentalist that I am.

Of course, the whole evening passed by all too quickly – as is often the case when you are lost in the moment, when time loses all meaning. Those moments when you forget yourself. Perhaps it is these moments we remember the most? When you forget yourself, you can remember the moment. Seems paradoxical but, free of your own baggage, your concerns, insecurities etc., you can immerse yourself in the ‘now’ and take in details you would have been blind to otherwise.

I was amazed at the reaction of the audience; loud cheering after every song! And afterwards I was told that even the road crew were singing along! People are getting to know these songs of love, loss and hope! They hold meaning to not only myself, but to an increasing number of people.

On the night I had a sore throat, the beginning of what would become a terrible head cold the next day. Thankfully, my voice – and my tendonitis (which had caused me to have to cancel three gigs before) - held out just long enough. The adrenaline got me through it.
Lee, our permanent ‘guest’ on bass guitar later told me that a friend of his had said that The Lullabys was the best thing he had ever been involved with in music! And we’re talking thirty years here! Another friend of his said it was pretentious bollocks! James Blunt and his music have been thus labelled. I don’t care what people think! Lee said he was quite emotional after the show, not knowing whether it was the end of the road for his involvement with The Lullabys. It seems that this band and these songs touch people on some level. That’s the whole point. To get people more in touch with their own emotions; to at least begin to acknowledge their feelings and then to accept and express them healthily. Only today I watched ‘The Lives of Others’, one of the best films I’ve ever seen and sat there with tears streaming down my face. How I love it when art can affect one so profoundly. That’s what I’m talking about.

Throughout the eleven weeks travelling the length and breadth of East Anglia, myself and Brett had honed our stagecraft. Anecdotes and stories, building a relationship/connection with the audience, spontaneous humour, poignancy, intimacy. I have to chuckle to myself when I think back to a gig earlier in the tour when the landlady of a pub told us during the break that we talk too much. “I paid for music, not talking!” she said. Get a covers band in then! Or a jukebox! We put on a show – we involve the audience, we banter, we want them to feel a part of it. At the end of the night we took our money, knowing we’ll never go back there.

And that’s what you find out on tour. As well as honing your craft, you find out the good venues from the mediocre. It soon became clear to us that your good old traditional English pub, used to bands playing rock covers just ain’t cut out for original songs about love and loss. They would prefer to hear Purple Haze or All Right Now, played to perfection, as if you were listening to the record. You might as well be! Where is the art in that?!

Take, for instance the fiasco of the Dirty Penguin in Colchester. We turned up only to be told live music had been stopped two weeks previously because the pub couldn’t afford to pay the bands! Nice of you to let us know, you wankers! Not to be undone, Brett got talking to a bloke across the road, who ran down to the Brewer’s Arms. So, we set up and did the gig there instead. They were a football-type crowd and would never get us in a million years but it was a good practice session for us, which is something we never do! Indeed, Lee had just one session with us before the tour and then learned the bass lines by listening to mp3’s. Thankfully, we didn’t find any other Dirty Penguins on the tour.

And thus, my personal favourite gigs (aside from the Con Club) would include the showcase we did at CB2 in Cambridge where we made some lovely new and very attractive friends! We had been used to playing with a full PA system, mics, amps, the lot. But not at CB2. Not a mic or amp in sight – pure acoustic. You could hear a pin drop – and we loved every minute of it. And so did the audience, judging by their reaction. They sat there, watching my every move up and down the fret board, listening intently. I’ll remember it also for our new Hungarian friends. Eszter had a tear in her eyes after hearing, ‘I Don’t Belong To Anyone’. We shall return, for sure.

The Greyhound in Wivenhoe was another lovely little gig. And I mean little; there was hardly room to move on stage as we were hemmed into a corner. But people loved us and more real friends were made in chance encounters. That’s how the good stuff happens.

It’s always a delight to play with our Big Red Boat friends and we enjoyed the shared gig at The Flying Dutchman in their home town of Lowestoft. And for some reason we got involved with Bury Busk, raising money for Cancer Research. I say ‘for some reason’ because the busk involved us performing in six different locations in Bury town centre for over four hours, having to move all our gear around with us in temperatures reaching eighty degrees! Thankfully, we had a trolley, and with our sign on permanent display everyone soon knew who we were! Blatant advertising, but I’ve learned that you can’t rely on others’ to promote you; you have to do it yourself, even if it means getting sunburnt.

We returned to the Abbey Gardens a couple of weeks later for the ‘Services’ day. The weather held out and people sat and picnicked whilst watching us, including a certain Ms Richardson about whom many of these songs were written during and after our break-up in 2007. It was the first time I’d seen her with her little baby. I’m genuinely happy for you, Jax! A sure sign that I must have moved on?

And we loved Lockstock at Geldeston. On the way we simply had to stop when we saw Starsky and Hutch's car parked by the road side and had our picture took beside it. Then, at the venue, which we arrived at after driving down long, winding dirt tracks we were told that we’d be playing in the bar and not on the main stage as we had expected. Worse than that, but there was no PA. Okay, no PA usually means an intimate, attentive audience, but everyone was outside, watching bands on the main stage. Nobody was in the bar! This was going to be a washout! It’s no fun playing to nobody. Me and Brett thought about going home.

But again, the phoenix rose from the ashes. Lee rigged together a makeshift PA whilst me and Brett did our marketing bit and went outside, handing everyone a flyer and business card, telling them we were about to play in the bar. Within minutes, and about 3 songs in, the bar was full and cheering like a football crowd after each song. New venue, new people, songs they had never heard before! What’s going on here? Brett was on a roll and the crowd were in hysterics at almost everything he said! Spontaneous humour. People flocked in from outside to find out what all the fuss was about.

The same reaction was experienced at Norwich Arts Centre. Again, a simple little set-up and an attentive, appreciative audience who were there the listen to music, not chat idly with their friends about the World Cup or what happened on Eastenders last night. It is the folk club scene that we are headed toward. The final show at the Con Club only confirmed this.

And so, eleven weeks of hard graft, fun, laughter, adventure, love, loss and hope came to an end on June 26th. But, as someone once said, “It’s only the end of the beginning.” Before we hit the road again my life will change forever. In just a couple of weeks from now there is the small matter of me becoming a dad for the first time. I am nowhere near prepared for it; others tell me nobody ever is. You can’t be. Like the tightrope walker who, halfway across and realising there is no safety net and then almost loses his nerve, I know there is no going back. So it’s onwards and upwards to who knows where. What is certain is that the experiences over the next few weeks will add fuel to the creative fire burning within me, where new songs are already starting to materialise from somewhere in the ether. These could be real love songs! But they all are. Because, without first having love, you couldn’t have loss.

Thanks to everyone who made the tour possible; Mark at Feel Good Media who booked the gigs and promoted us like crazy on local radio shows; all the people who came to support us (you know who you are); Lee on bass who has added an extra dimension to our sound and of course Brett for all his hard work, effort and belief in my songs. It means a lot, mate. Roll on Hatchfest on August 1st. See ya there!

Gav x