Gig report: The Dowsing For Sound Collective @ Great St Mary's, Cambridge

Band: The Dowsing For Sound Collective
Venue: Great St Mary's, Cambridge
Date: 22/01/13
Audience: Huge, wonderful
Set: Take Me Home, I Wanna Life, Empty Room, Tonight We Fly, Sweet Disposition, Madness, Every Teardop
Notes: The first Dowsing outing for the year and first with the slightly different name too. This was a reasonably last minute thing, as part of a light festival in Cambridge (the lighting was spectacular, and the whole event was organised to perfection) and although the choir were very much in shape the scaled-down band of Andrea, Gav and myself hadn't actually rehearsed the whole set ahead of the show. We know these songs well though, the thing about Dowsing is that as the main performances are so big these songs are drilled into your subconscious and can generally be pulled out of the bag for other events. The only potential banana skin came in the form of 'Madness', a song the choir know well having recorded it with electronic backing, but one less familiar to me - got away with it though. I think the key sometimes in uncertain situations is to just be stupidly enthusiastic, it always seems to work. It was a fantastic gig tonight - absolutely top notch, a venue that means a lot to us original Dowsers as that's where the first (and still unrivalled, despite everything) gig took place - a gig that, now a couple years ago, made me excited about playing music again just as I was starting to get bored of it all. A packed crowd in tonight, I had friends who couldn't get a decent seat so had to go on the balcony, do you know how proud this makes me feel? Also a crowd that responded enthusiastically, rapturous applause whenever warranted, the choir in remarkably confident voice and as a band us living slightly on the edge but probably playing all the better for it. Dowsing is a magical thing - I'm still trying to work out exactly where it fits in my life because things are forever changing (and with this comes massive doubt - I'm a playwright/drummer - but at the moment I seem to be finding more 'exposure' as an actor/percussionist, I'm not ungrateful or anything, it's just hard to get my head around sometimes) and my schedule is almost at breaking point - but I will make time for this, I have to, it enriches my life more than a blog post can express. Those Dowsers are all lovely too, didn't get a chance to really speak to many of them as I arrived fashionably flustered (a diversion on the road to my intended parking place/I missed the diversion sign because I was listening to Ben Folds Five really loudly), and then afterwards I went straight for a drink with my mate Julia (she went quite of her way to make it to the gig, her second Dowsing experience) who remains probably the most intellectual and exciting person you could ever have a conversation with. I'm knackered - played a 2 and a half hour gig with Trevor on Thursday night, the second time in the space of a couple days on top of the day job (which now ends in May, by the way, then I go full time at this), before belting them hard at Great St Marys...this conga lark is great fun, but as I'm sat here with a Carling and packet of Twiglets I hope I can justify it as exercise.