There's more than meets the eye to running such a show. I had about 4 weeks to contact artists, agree a schedule and so on. I built up a little list of technical requirements for each act (which included whether the artist wanted to stand or sit to play) so that we wouldn't get any surprises on the night.
Crew and artists started arriving at about 5pm and the sound system was assembled and, for this gig, Keira set up her performance space. (How she gets all that in a Tazz is one of life's intriguing mysteries)
The show was to kick off at 20:00 (no "close enough for rock 'n roll", we had 6 acts and so we had to be prompt in order to give each of them time to give a decent performance). Just before 8 I took a shot of the crowd. Some of you may spot yourselves...
Blind Melon van Schalkwyk went on first to warm the crowd
A quick introduction and then Keira's "jazz with subtitles"
After Keira's high octane opening we rang the changes with acapella group No Principles
Then back on stage for Mr "I don't play acoustic guitar" Stratisfear who delivered a fab set (on a guitar he borrowed from me)
He can play acoustic guitar all right. He closed with a marvellous solo reworking of Richard Thompson's "Shoot Out The Lights" (I didn't put him up to it)
Nechama Brodie turned up at one of our open mic nights a couple of months back and was nervous but completely captivated the audience. She worked her magic again last night with a set of originals and one cover. That cover, by coincidence, was Bert Jansch's "Needle Of Death".
Then two more strong sets (everybody was sooooo good) by Mike Rowe and then, new to TJ's, Shotgun Tori
"Mission control" and the view from mission control
A great night - really. All the performers delivered strong sets. As I said at the beginning of the show - 1/10 the price of Coldplay, lots of free parking, the beer comes to your seat and six great acts.
My thanks to the performers, to the technical team of Bryan, Bill and Graham, to Aubs1 for the photos (the action shots here are his) and to a fab audience.
