Gig report: Flaming June/Trevor Jones @ Oxjam Festival, Cambridge

Bands: Flaming June and Trevor Jones
Venues: Oxjam Cambridge Takeover - Flaming June at The Emperor, Trevor Jones at The Avery
Date: 20/10/12
Audience: Enthusiastic, charitable
Sets: Flaming June - Rejoice, Stop The Ride, Rumplestiltskin, Those Were The Days, Nerves Of Steel, Little Love In A Cruel World, Pyscho, Wednesdays & Weekends; Trevor Jones - Falling, Alive, Roll On The Rain, Badman, Old Fashioned Woman, Shine A Light, All I Am, Can't Take This Anymore
Notes: The Oxjam Takeover events are such a simple idea - and for a very worthy cause (Oxfam, obviously) yet such hard work goes into making these shows happen. Not from us lazy musicians, of course, we just turn up and play - but from the organisers, who have once again put on a cracking event in Cambridge this year. Their hard work makes it very easy for us performing types, because their organisation is rigorous - and as a result we just turn up and play without any fuss whatsoever, it's the perfect gig. I was playing it this year with two bands - Flaming June at The Emperor at 4.20pm and then Trevor Jones at 9pm just down the road at The Avery. Well, it was supposed to be just down the road, but the road was closed, and I got confused with the diversion, so it took the best part of half an hour for me to make the three minute trip, but that's pretty irrelevant to the gigs themselves. It was always going to be a long day - 2 gigs and a bit of a gap in the middle, and this wasn't helped by a very unplanned drinking session the night before with friends Alister, Richard and Michael just after my British IBM rehearsal. The Flaming June gig at the Emperor was a real cracker - my conga was still a little annoyingly out of tune (something I have rectified today, finally - conga tuning isn't an easy task, mind) but the vibe in that room - especially for an afternoon - was phenomenal, the audience were just so up for it. It was fiery, fast Flaming June, more punk folk than ever, hot and sweaty and leaving us out of breath after each song - the energy levels on stage were frightening and the crowd took to us with great enthusiasm. Just one of those gigs where things worked out - there is no logic to why these things happen sometimes, just the right audience, the right band and right vibe in the room at the same time. After us were Jacqui & Geoff, a band I seem to see a lot of recently, and they also (deservedly) went down a storm - it was just something about those couple of hours in that venue where things seemed great for everyone. I then popped down to The Avery to play a set with Trevor Jones. This time it was full drums and we played it as a trio (myself and Tony Page (bass) as Trevor's rhythm section), another busy crowd - not quite as enthusiastic as the audience earlier on but I think that may have been the nature of these things, the further the day goes the more drunk people are the less attention they have towards the band on stage as they just want to chat, but we still had a lively and healthy audience applauding us. We played well, we should play well considering we've been playing this set for a while now, but it's good to know we're confident with what we're doing - I felt very comfortable up there, despite our makeshift stage being next to the ladies toilets so the occasional distraction of the hand dryer going was a minor issue. A really good day that, ending with me arguing with somebody about hip-hop. Good friends turned up to see stuff during the day (Jack, Heather, Vicky, Duncan) and I appreciate that, the Oxjam series of events across the UK all seem to flourishing and rightly so - they're so good. Playing one more with Flaming June next week in Bedford, looking forward to it.