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Rahhh… This weekend just passed was the culmination of months of thought and labour:
the beginning of the Dizraeli and the Small Gods UK Tour, and the launch -finally- of our Twisted Folk collaboration with Chris Wood, Rachel Rose Reid and Philippe Barnes.
Praise be to Cosmo (whoever the frig that is). It was GOOD:
Exeter gave us a full crowd of wicked people.
“Right. Is it OK if we take you to a quieter place now?”
“Naahh! But it’s Saturday night!”
A little flock of gurning faces thought they couldn’t take music you don’t dance to, but when we played the song it was fine, right gurners? Exeter was good to us.
After the encore, we poured off the stage into our tour van – the first time we’ve had a proper Splitter innit, with a table and seats around – and rolled through the night to London, brushing Stonehenge without noticing. We were hyped to be all together in one space having done a dope gig. Cate steered the van round corners, everything regularly slid off the table, and we kept the rum in the microwave.
We didn’t crash bedwards til 6am, and were up again at 11 to get ourselves to soundcheck at XOYO, where Twisted Folk was going to happen. A day of false starts and slumpings: the whole band was knackered, and our run-through of the collaboration set in soundcheck was Very Shabby. I was shiting small bricks all day long: a whole set of new tracks we were intending to perform, with stupidly talented artists giving their time to work with us… It had to be perfect, and we surely hadn’t rehearsed enough.
Somehow though, when we took to the stage with Rachel for the first track (a love creation myth she wrote especially) it all pulled together on a huge and brilliant scale. Rachel was amazing, holding the big crowd captive with her storytelling. After that, every track came through exactly as it should… I mean, it shouldn’t work, transforming an old folk song about a randy shapeshifting blacksmith into a battle between whistle and turntables. But it did. It worked better than any of us imagined.
It set us up with smiles the size of Shoreditch, and our second set (just Small Gods material) was an excercise in how to enjoy playing.
Thank you to the rowdy crowd of Exeter and the listening crowd of London.
Thank you to Chris Wood, Philippe Barnes and Rachel Rose Reid. You’re all amazers.
We’re in Manchester this Thursday and Bristol on Saturday… Come and join us somewhere.
Peace
Dizraeli