*yawn*

Well, the gigs are over.I'd love to say that they both went alright, but the truth is only one of them did.Don't get me wrong, Saturday was a great day, apart from the rain, and it was a great venue and everything, and we all had a lovely time. We just got on stage and...something didn't click. Louis blames his guitar, which cut out for about half of the first track, and meant that we all spent the first track worrying when we should have been relaxing with the audience. The result was that no-one spoke practically at all, and we didn't bounce or involve the audience. Technically we played very well - but it wasn't enough. We couldn't win over the audience, and I'm not used to doing that. Everyone we talked to said they enjoyed it though - and despite that being what everyone says when you get off stage - it's a good sign. The rest of the bands weren't all that folkie after us, so I suspect the type of audience had something to do with it. Tim Van Eyken - can I just say "yum!" (I will always tend to go for the tall and skinny ones) - was phenomenal, and the Rags were brillant too - all flashing lights and power chords. I just couldn't cope though - all the music was great, but I couldn't stay in the hall. All I wanted to do was curl up in a corner and go to sleep, but there just wasn't the opportunity. And the exhaustion was doing funny things to me - I was wandering around acting drunk when I wasn't, and I'm sure I had various confusing conversations with people, and I can't remember what I said at all. Odd experience.Then yesterday it was amazing. We got on stage, and it was suddenly alright again. We got into the "inntinn zone" where we're able to charm audiences and bounce off each other. And it worked. We impressed an awful lot of people, and networked with even more. Felt loads better. Wish we could have stayed longer too but with the workload the way it is at the moment I couldn't afford to really.There is very much a sense of being "on show" at these things, and as the local journalist I need to talk to the right people and be seen at just about everything that's on. And while that's fun, I'm just not firing on all cylinders at the moment and can't possibly live up to everyones expectations, let alone my own.