Dear all,
Tomorrow night is my last gig of the year as UFQ play another sold out show in Hampshire. It’s been an amazing year of gigs with a good old solo run in the first half of the year with a welcome return to Australia and New Zealand as well as a UK solo tour.
UFQ have also been mightily busy again touring the new album and rocking it out at festivals. It’s difficult to put into words how much I love being in this band. We recently had a 15th anniversary gig (although I’ve been in it a mere 10!) at Huntingdon Hall in Worcester with special guests which really threw into focus how lucky I feel to work with such fantastic musicians and humans.
There’s also been some cracking gigs with Brooks Williams, Sandyman and others too! I had a brilliant time with Canadian folkies The Fugitives when they toured over here as I stepped in for their regular player who couldn’t make the first week. We formed a firm friendship and had a really cracking time at the gigs. I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed my gigs in Countrybound, a cracking country covers band with ace singer Micki Consiglio. This has been a thoroughly enjoyable outlet to add to my gigging! I’ve always sort of fancied having a covers thing on the side and just knocking out some good old country music – this project has been the answer!
So what of next year? Some of you have wondered where next year’s gigs are as they’ve not appeared on the site…Well…I’ll be doing plenty of gigs but at the beginning of the year I’m taking some time to write some new material. I’ve had lots of ideas floating round my head all year but want to get down to it and work them into proper numbers. UFQ also have this feeling about our repertoire too. I’ll not be entirely gig-less (and will get around to putting those gigs on the website instanter…) with a spattering of them in the first few months of the year. I have the luxury I didn’t used to have which is my teaching, patreon, session work and care home concerts mean I can financially survive without gigs (although don’t get me wrong they do help!) so I feel it’s important to ease up on the gigging a little to get some new material up and running and hopefully a new album too. Interestingly the music I’m coming up with seems a bit more American. Let’s see where it takes us!
Then April sees a fair old shift in my life as baby number two is scheduled to make an appearance! So for that reason I’ll just be doing a few gigs in May rather than my usual full tour as I feel family duty rather comes first! For the same reason UFQ’s spring tour is also just a gig or two.
But I’m glad to say there’s plenty in the latter half of the year! It’s looking like a great festival season with UFQ especially an appearance at Cropredy which I have always dreamt of so am extremely excited!!! Then in September I’ll be on the road on my lonesome with new material and then UFQ are at it again in the autumn. So don’t worry you’re not rid of me yet out there!
In my 20s I never appreciated the dilemma musicians face in trying to juggle family life and work, simply because I didn’t have a family! Every musician has to find the right way for them. I decided from the outset that the days of me doing 200 gigs all over the world all year round would be over once a baby arrived. I had to find a different way to make my living which covid, oddly, actually helped with as it rather forced my hand with recruiting more students, setting up my Patreon and setting up a home studio.
Of course gigging is an enormous part of who I am and I could never not do it – for one thing it earns the most! But most importantly it is who I am and I would be lost without performing. Utterly lost. So I’ll always gig – just not in quite such a troubadour kind of way! I greatly miss doing so many foreign tours – the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Norway and Ireland were all pretty regular fixtures in the calendar and I greatly miss that especially all the wonderful friends I made in those places which is one of the best things about touring. But life is life – I’m incredibly glad I did so much touring in my 20s and don’t get me wrong I will get back to those places in the fullness of time! I just feel that family life at this time is so precious and my main job in life is a father to my incredible daughter Heidi and my new arrival and of course my wonderful other half Nicol.
Thank you all for all your amazing support, I never lose sight of the fact that this career wouldn’t have happened were it not for lots of generosity of people and some lucky breaks! I wanted to be a musician all my life. Every day I count myself lucky that I am one.