Gig report: Aidy @ The Portland Arms, Cambridge

Band: Aidy (with Dave on bass and me on congas)
Venue: The Portland Arms, Cambridge
Date: 12/03/11
Audience: Half-full, polite
Set: Not sure - 9 songs, ended with 'Washing Machine'
Notes: Nice gig this - we opened a charity event called 'The 100 Mile Playlist', raising money for local lad Sam Robson who is running both the London marathon - and then back to Cambridge, to raise money for the Epilepsy Society. Met him before the show, nice chap and really driven, really glad that he had such a good turnout last night and raised lots of cash. As always for the opening act we didn't have the biggest crowd, but still - for an opening slot we had a half-full venue which was pretty good all the same, and the audience were cheery enough to make us feel welcome. Fuelled by a post-rehearsal fry-up at Aidy's, we bashed through the set, I thought we were pretty tight and it's a good reminder of how a couple hours of running through the set before the gig can really help the performance. The band after us were a 9-piece funk band called The Titanics - they were excellent, although I'm still baffled as to how they got 9 of them up there in such a tiny venue, it worked though. Feel a touch guilty for not seeing the other 2 bands, but it had been a long week and I just felt the need to get drunk with my mates at the bar, they sounded good from what I could hear though. Ended the evening back at my good friend Jack's house (conveniently a 2 minute walk from the venue), in which we all drank excessively and listened to the genius of Graham Parker till the early hours. Happy days. Back to bed now though I think.