I’ve not been doing much this month since the Ding Dong Gong show a couple of weeks ago. Work’s been full on this month and with the Euros on as well it’s not been an ideal time for doing standup, so I’ve been trying to revert to my original plan for the year, which was to not book any more spots until I’ve put some serious effort into writing some new material.
That all went out of the window when an email arrived this week, offering last minute spots on Up the Creek’s Beat the Blackout gong show on Thursday night. I’ve done the night a couple of times before, first failing at four minutes, and then beating it on my second go.
I really like the night for a few reasons – they always manage to get a big audience (about 100+ people would be my guess), you get a couple of minutes grace before they can gong you off, and the club usually sends you a good quality recording of your set. I know a lot of up and coming acts like to do the gig because, if nothing else, you get good video clips of any material you do at the start of your set, even if they gong you off later, and that’s great fodder for your socials.
I also like it because the club does great food – so I arrived early and grabbed myself a Greek chicken gyros, which makes a nice change from the usual supermarket sandwich I eat on the way to a gig because I’ve not had time for a proper dinner. I try to support venues wherever I can, but I don’t drink much when I’m on, so if I can buy food instead that’s always a good option for me.
I didn’t know too many of the other acts – although it was good to see Micah Hall, who I’ve known from my early days getting started in standup. I used to bump into him regularly at open mics, and it’s great to see him develop into a solid act.
I got a spot halfway through the second section, which meant I could relax and watch the first half. The crowd seemed pretty well behaved – they weren’t shy of gonging people off, but they were up for it and gave all of the acts a fair chance. A few people finished their full five minutes, a few didn’t.
But things took a turn in the second half. There was a rowdy group at the back, including one annoying dickhead who kept talking to his mates and shouting random bullshit out at the acts – but as is so often the case with these guys, it was unintelligable garble instead of anything you could actually work with.
A lot of the crowd turned on them and kept shouting at them to shut up, but it made it harder for acts to hold the audience’s attention long enough to get through their material. The last guy to go up didn’t even bother, and spent the whole time doing crowdwork and insulting the rowdy group – which paid off for him because the crowd were behind him and he finished his five minutes without a single red card.
I didn’t really have much of a game-plan because this was a last minute gig and I’d been really busy that day. I did my standard five minutes, but threw in a couple of call backs to stuff the other acts had talked about, and it seemed to go down fairly well. It was kind of hard to gauge what was happening because of all the noise from the back of the room, so I just pushed on loudly and quickly, not giving anybody time to derail me – although it was still pretty distracting.
I think I made it to about 4:30ish – unlike other gong shows Beat the Blackout doesn’t give you any kind of signal that one of the three red cards has been waved, so unless you actually see the audience member raising their card (which is hard, with the stage-lights in your face) you have no idea how you’re doing until the klaxon lets you know that you’re finished.
It was a good night, but it’s kind of tricky to judge how well I really did – it was noisy and chaotic, and I was just trying to get through my set – the people I could see in the front couple of rows seemed to be on-board, but your mind plays tricks on you in those situations. When the video comes through, it might tell a different story. If the club sends me a recording, I’ll do a post-match analysis to see how it compares with my take on the night.
EDIT: So I got the video and it turns out I lasted 3:40 – I seemed to lose them when I went into a bit about being from the north, so I can only conclude that the people of Greenwich are obviously racists.
Watching the tape back, it feels like I was being too loud and fast, maybe coming off as a little aggressive – but on the night I was worried about getting derailed by the gobshites at the back of the room (you can hear them a little on the full video) so I was trying make sure the audience stayed focused on me and not give the hecklers any space to make themselves heard.