MY GIG ENDEAVOURS

Over the past few weeks, buying gig tickets seems to be all I’m doing – and going to them of course. I arrived to the Gloucester Guildhall on Wednesday 4^th February to see JP Cooper in an acoustic gig, not knowing what to expect at all but open to it anyway. Turns out, the venue was fabulous, easy to get to and the gig was incredible – his voice is like chocolate. I met a friend there (after initially thinking I was going alone) and the evening turned out to be pleasantly surprising.

Following on from this, I went to see Charlie Simpson on Friday night – he was supported by Blackwell and Willow Robinson, if I’m honest, I really didn’t know what to expect as all I could think about was Busted. However, saying that, as a fan of his new sound and music I was pleasantly surprised at how he managed to take the stage and how the audience responded to him. He played through songs from both his first and second album, and although I didn’t know all the words you could hear people that did and were screaming it. The gig was very acoustic with him constantly switching guitars, however after the first few times you just accepted it. One thing that did surprise me, was the amount of guys at the gig. Generally at those kind of gigs you don’t find that there are many guys, however it was quite an even split (probably didn’t help with all the couples though). Beneath is my favourite song from the gig.

The Oxford Festival is something that I’ve participated in for the past 4 years with the Oxfordshire Youth Flute Choir and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Although, I have never wanted to do a solo it always interested me to watch others’ as they performed to a small audience. On Saturday 7^th February I spent the day watching all manner of performances, from the pipes of a bagpipe, to very high quality flute playing. Not only that, but with my participation in the Oxfordshire County Flute Choir (adult ensemble), I was able to sit in and watch all of these for free. The standard of playing was incredibly hard and if I was the adjudicator I would not have been able to choose between the consistencies of some of the performances.

Further to all of this excitement, I went to see the Oxfordshire Youth Concerto Competition on Sunday 8^th February. The evening was in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, and it proved to be a worthy venue. There were 3 soloists that had made it to the final – violinist, pianist and cellist. My favourite of the three ended as the winner, the pianist. He did Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin and it was fabulous – the orchestra played incredibly well and I was really impressed by the standard of playing by the player. Afterwards, we got the pleasure of hearing Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto, played by the notable Daniel Shao (the winner of last year’s concerto competition), it was magnificent.

All in all, I have 11 gigs and theatre performances coming up in the next few months (and the list is growing rapidly) and I am very excited for all of them. My next is on Friday to see The Staves in the O2 Academy in Oxford, something that I am really looking forward to.