Back to Battersea Power Comedy this week. The gig runs in the upstairs room of the Duchess pub, which does great food, so I’d arranged to meet a friend there for dinner beforehand and ended up getting through a couple of pints and most of a bottle of wine before it was my turn to go up.
I usually don’t drink much at gigs, especially before I’ve done my set – but I wanted to hang out with my friend, and I was feeling pretty confident so I wasn’t too worried about going on stage a bit pissed. It was mostly OK, but at one point I completely blanked in the middle of a bit and it took me a few seconds of flailing before I got back on track. That doesn’t usually happen to me, so I have to put it down to the booze.
I think being a little pissed on stage might be a good thing for me, but only if I’m delivering material that I’m very confident and practiced with so there’s no danger of me forgetting bits. Just the right amount of booze might help me to look a bit more relaxed.
I’ve had a few flashes of inspiration recently and written some new bits to add into my main set. Because it’s all loosely on the same topic (parenting) it’s easy throw the new bits into the mix with more polished material for each gig. I tried out a couple of new bits that I came up with this week and they both worked fairly nicely, so I’ll keep them. I’m reasonably confident that I’ve got enough serviceable material for a 10 minute set, although whether I could remember it all is a different matter.
It was a fairly busy night with 15 acts, and I hadn’t seen a lot of them before – there seemed to be a lot more newbies on the bill than at most of my recent gigs. I did bump into the Italian guy I mentioned in my last post, who did a much stronger set this time. Vasek Pernikar was there, I’ve seen him a few times now and really like his act – he’s got the market cornered for slightly creepy weirdness. Likewise, I’ve seen Dan Mahony a few times recently and he’s shaping up into a solid act.
Finally, there was an American guy called Brooke Hoerr who I thought was pretty good – although that’s probably because we both cover similar themes in our material.
Everybody stuck around in the bar after the show and it was good to talk to some of the other acts. At most of the gigs I do people tend to disappear as soon as the show ends, so I don’t get much opportunity to compare notes with others.
At one point a woman who was in the audience spotted me propping up the bar and creased up as she walked past, then she came over for a chat. Not gonna lie, that gave my ego a boner.
I’m off to San Francisco for a week now and I’ll be trying to do some open mic nights while I’m there. When I get back I’ve got a couple of spots booked at Sam Rhodes Comedy Explosion in Dalston – I’ve never done that gig before, but I’ve heard good things so I’m looking forward to it.