First Night

I have to thank everyone who came and watched, played, and talked. It was great to see the idea come to life, and I have learnt so much for the next one.
It was an interesting process putting on the night, getting the P.A,projector and making sure everyone was there on time. We had a few dodgy moments where we thought we mightn't get the projector off the wall from where we were kindly borrowing it, but Tholly being a manly man worked out a way.
We watched Louise Palmers film Zabbaleen which is a wonderful film ; shows the suffering of these people but also with out in anyway belittling them. The way the main character gets on with his life really inspires you to do the best you can, and if you can't recycle after this film you never will.
John ainsworth came along and sang with his 12 string guitar. He has a style reminiscent of Jeff Buckley but is completely unique in his own way. He dealt with a wee bit of distortion, wonderfully, as well. He deserves to be huge. Here is a link to his my space.

Marc Hudson of Manchester Climate Fortnightly came along and helped give the night its own special feel. He talked to us about Manchester and what is doing or not doing to combat climate change. Broke us up into small groups and got us to come up with ideas that we have been implementing with climate change in mind, and any suggestions questions we might have. In the little time we had I learnt some new things, how glass gets blasted at such hot temperatures that doesn't matter if it is contaminated when recycled,and got to hear somw new ideas. As a friend of mine said afterwards it was like school but we had a beer,and I wanted to know as I didn't know these things before. It was nice to have these issues in a positive chilled out light where it is completely normal and interesting to be talking about them. None of us are perfect but it makes you want to try harder.
Sophie Rosa played a piece by the New Zealand composer Gareth Farr called Lake Wakatipu. She was awesome.
Then it was the turn of the Tawse boys I can't really review them as I was up there strumming, but we had a lot of fun and will be performing and recording a lot more over the next few months.
Thanks to everyone for coming and all those who didn't hopefully see you at the next one.
Ben
P.s Check you haven't bought a fitted sheet when you are using it as a screen for a projector