[Guest Column] Lail Arad // Young & Breaking #4

I’d like to tell you a little bit about two shows I had last week. They were at such opposite ends of the small-venue spectrum, I felt very versatile if nothing else…

The first was a fundraiser party at The George on Commercial Road. The word ‘party’ should have flagged up some warning bells from the start. It was to raise money for a play my friend is producing (Broken Blossoms), and they did the place up beautifully in old-Chinatown opium-den style. It was a Sunday night before bank holiday Monday so there was a dangerous air of bonus time about the place. We had just played a daytime event at the Camden Crawl and were a little exhausted – though that’s often the recipe for the best shows.

Just before us was a girl who introduced herself by saying (literally) “I-play-folk-songs-so-I dont-mind-if-you-continue-talking” and straight after us came a cabaret duo who did covers of Beyonce and Britney and introduced themselves by screaming “WASSSSSUUP LONDOOON” into the already dodgy sound system. Spirits were high. Ours too. Roi the musician I work with had landed some Indian take-away which recharged his battery. I tried to attach a paper lantern to my head as a hat but finally decided I looked like a chef rather than a Chinese Lolita.

It only took about half a song to realise that however much people were dancing and cheering, they were not listening, and they were not going to listen. I find it uncomfortable singing sad or personal songs in that sort of atmosphere – and anyway who wants to hear quiet confessions in an opium den? So we pulled out our emergency “nobody is listening” loud numbers – our cover of Devendra’s Like A Child is always a safe bet. A year or so ago I might have felt quite down-trodden after an experience like that. But we really enjoyed ourselves! It made me a bit jealous of bands that just get to rock out show after show.

Two days later we were playing at a newish venue in Camden called The Forge. It’s a sort of spacious back room attached to a Sicilian restaurant, with a grand piano and strange walls that can be taken apart. We had the weirdest sound-check ever – we couldn’t hear ourselves. The speakers were so very quiet – and I’m always the one asking for volume to be turned down! I really didn’t know how the show would go, there was an awkward stillness in the room. It felt like a space for classical music, a place where my lyrics would be taken far too seriously. Some people ordered food and you could hear puff pastry crunch in their mouths…

I find stage banter much tougher that singing the songs, but I got into nervous chatty mode and started telling the audience stories. Like how half my shoe had fallen off on the way over and how I’d cut my finger on a broken umbrella cause I was too lazy to buy a new one (all true). We veered away from the exact songs we had relied on a couple nights before, aired out the most intimate tracks, and somehow in that awkward set-up everything just worked! I had a special guest too, Bent, the lead singer of Das Pop – who must have been in complete shock, used to playing for packed nightclubs excited Europeans jumping up and down – but he played beautifully at the piano. It turned out to be a really magical night.

And that’s the beauty of live shows. You can’t help but respond to the situation, the people, the room… lyrics take on new meanings, different music works on different days, and you never get bored. Every gig a new adventure!