Just a quick post to mention what a rocking good time I had playing a gig at a party to celebrate “40 years of Ben” at the weekend! I had my concerns about my set beforehand but I was in the right mood and the crowd were delightful. Moreover though it was my first gig where I featured other artists as guests and it added so much and relieved some of the pressure on me. First up, Graham Dunning did a fantastic spoken word piece over one of my tunes. He’d not realised that I wanted him to perform that night, so he’d written nothing in preparation. I had mentioned something in a Gil Scott-Heron drawl style might be nice, so he downloaded a Churchill speech on his iPhone and read that out, occasionally adding “The revolution will not be televised”. Inspired! Next up, Jen of Conway and Young fame played some trumpet over a track. She’s not been playing that long but she did a great job. It added so much to an otherwise pretty sparse tune. Finally, as an encore, the birthday boy himself (Ben Waddington) stepped up to the mic and we did an improvised piece based on him speaking in tongues! Bonkers stuff.

Anyway, the conclusion I came to is that collaboration is REALLY good! I have always avoided it in the past for live stuff, as I am a bit of a control freak, but it was great fun and really added a lot. Here’s to more of it!