The first thing I noticed about this gig venue (The Steeles in Chalk Farm), was the unfriendliness of the atmosphere. Why should I be forced to give you my name and email address just to enter the room? And do they really think I can’t just make one up?

Increasingly presenting herself as Gary’s gigging mascot (she may think of it switched the other way), Rosie Doonan helped when she turned up, saying all her words with her Leeds tongue. And as soon as Gary’s loyal crowd showed to share a table it was possible to block everyone else out, but I couldn’t help thinking I was being judged simultaneously by the exact size of my carbon footprint, as well as the length of time I’ve spent in South East Asia.

I was informed of a no flash photography rule. Fair do’s, small venue, calm, soft songs’ll be ruined with big flashes going off. But as soon as I took out the camera (which was turned to ‘Flash Off’) I was severely told to consider myself served, as a waitress pointed to the no flash sign. The sign really should have read ‘No cameras looking like they have flash capability’ as over the course of the night, I made out half a dozen arses with camera phones.

Here’s the line up:

Elena Tonra

Came in half way through her. Usual singer/songwriter, plinky plonky acoustic accoutrement, soft, smooth, tight… but not special. No feeling, no power, no emotion. Not rehearsed, or performed well.

Louise Hull w/ Rosie Doonan

Better. But the fact that I grouped the first two together speaks volumes about their similarities. Similarity is a bad thing in any case in a showcase such as this, but especially so when the similarities are their blandness. Both artists had nice voices, could sing well, and showed off thar fact. But nothing either well written, or at all adventurous with their limited instrument style would have spelled boredom had I not been excited about the arrival of the next act.

Gary Stewart

Only allowed 4 songs, which in itself is a crime akin to the murder of a young blonde girl.

Maggie-O – song for a lost lover. Gary starts off bearing his soul for all to see… revealing the meaning behind the song. Full of emotion, hurt, torment, puts the crowd in a great mood.

Behind the Door – takes it down a notch with a song about prostitution “It’s not autobiographical” quips Gary. You get some comedy when you come see him, he’s an all round entertainer! It is then, during these first two tested numbers, we really start to see the muso on top form. It becomes ever more apparent through his set, that unlike the first two (and remaining) acts. Gary really adds a performance to his music. The others might as well just bring a pre-recorded CD and press play.

Take Me Down – New song for the London crowd this. You could see Gary pushing the hippy mood of the night a little bit (with his songs that actually force you to tap your toe and to sing along  (should you be lucky enough to see him often and know the words)), as opposed to the other acts which I couldn’t help feeling the audience considered ‘important’ and ‘groundbreaking’. Little did they know, these thoughts made them ‘pretentious’ and ‘twats’.

Song X – Ending with a completely new song ‘Less than a week old’ states Gary as he asks us to be kind. I have an old recording of him playing ‘Ballerina’ for the first time in a live venue, where he requests the exact same treatment. X needs some work sure, it’s a slow starter (unlike all his other hits), and he’s still to hone the performance of it (the thing that makes his act so unique). But should Song X come to be as moving and enriching as Ballerina… he has nothing to worry about.

This is the Kit

Starts off with a girl playing the banjo. Banjo? O.K, this could be interesting. Turns out, she couldn’t play the banjo. She could only hold a banjo, aimlessly strum it, and look like she didn’t have a clue what was going on. She chopped and changed between her tuneless banjo which may as well have been a milk carton and length of balsa wood with some package string across it, and an electric guitar (which didn’t provide us anything better) song to song. Somehow she was given higher billing than Gary, and pushed her luck with 5 headache inducingly awful song-like pieces of sound.

I got an idea of the kind of place this was though, the kind of music this was supposed to be, and the kind of audience I was expected to be when I caught sight of one guy, slumped across one of the higgledy placed leather sofas of the room. A solemn ‘look at me I’m so tortured, I’m made to struggle for my art, because of my talent.’ Look on his face. I’m certain he’d have been the kind of person you see in a Sunday afternoon pub, half a shandy, rolling a skinny cigarette before the smoking ban. The Russell Brand of cigarettes, 95% of which is poor quality hash.

I could see him, nodding his head to the ‘music’, obviously considering how ‘important’ and ‘worldly’ it was. It may not sound very good, she may not be able to play either of her instruments, to sing, or to write anything a normal person would think of as music, but why should she follow these conventions? Why should the sprinter finishing in 1st place get the Gold? Because they’re the best. That’s why.

Magic Lantern

I’ll give you half a guess who this was. Not even half a guess. Just start to let it cross over your consciousness whilst you absent mindedly wander to it from something else.  Correct. Before he starts to ‘play’ anything – he goes into a monologue about how he hates it when people get up to perform, then spend an age talking into the microphone. “We didn’t come to see a stand-up comic, get on with the song!” I’m sure he believes this to be an incredibly witty statement, and sees himself as a magnanimously modest performer. But he’s not, he’s just a twat.

Rodney Fisher & The Rest

After what seemed like a Jupiter year of sitting through ‘This is the Shit’ and ‘Magic Wank’, I knew I was on the edge of an incredibly tall building. I was actually teetering in all directions, atop Seattle’s Space Needle and had to sacrifice my seat for a more strategic spot next to the door. If the next (and last) person was as bad as the previous two, I wouldn’t care how rusty the blade was, I’d make it happen.

Turns out Rodney Fisher (I think he was one of the guys who organised the event), and a collection of his mates weren’t too bad. But let’s face it, at that stage, I could have gone up and set fire to a bag of cats and made it look (and sound) good. They played four or five numbers. Similar to the first couple of girls, but with backing singers and a bass guitar. My decision to stick around to the end wasn’t looking awful by the time the encore was called. I wanted to touch base with Gary afterwards anyhow, but an additional reward came with the final bonus song (which was first denied due to a curfew, before it was swiftly pointed out that the clock was wrong), an upbeat Damien Rice/Badly Drawn Boy-‘y’ few minutes with flashes of violin and trumpet thrown in for a bit of sweet pleasure, like pineapple in a salad.

After all had passed, it seemed a bit of a shame that Gary was on this bill and not one full of people more in tune to his style (and just in tune in general). A shame he only had chance to give us four songs. But he blew the others out of the water (yet again), and walked away, working the room, the same happy, smiley man you’ll see at any of his gigs.