Well, this is huge personal milestone, playing solo in front of an audience in a large venue, estimated audience was around 200 to 250. This crowd footage (by my wife) is in the circumstances and understandably, not the best quality, but at least proof that I did it. There may be some more official footage and will post it if it becomes available.
So how did this come about. The School of Music where I take singing lessons have had annual concerts for students, normal around a dozen in a local café to perform for family and friends. This year they pushed the boat out and booked the Fire Station in Sunderland. This is fairly new 500 seat venue which gets a lot of bands from yesteryear such as CCR in May and later in the year Francis Rossi in October, Lindisfarne performed last year amongst just some, so no tuppence ha’penny venue. There was a sound guy and another operating the lights.
When this opportunity came about, I was working on John Denver’s Follow Me, not one of his most known songs in the UK. I was doing it fingerstyle but as I got nearer the event I decided ‘discretion was a better part of valour’ and went for strumming with my thumb. I did this all from memory, no chord sheet in front of me. Each performer only had a three minute slot so time for only one song.
I made plenty of mistakes but just kept going, I am not being too critical of myself it was a huge step forward. Things that took me a bit by surprise. Not really hearing what was going out to the audience in particular guitar. Having played at the guitar club concerts I was aware of this as you are behind the speakers, but at the guitar club you can hear others on stage but when you are solo you don’t have that advantage. The guitar was picked up on a mic and was not convinced during the performance that it was picking anything up, very disconcerting, apparently it was, although listening to the recording I am not convinced. There was no opportunity to do a sound check which was a problem. Also, the spotlights in your face meant that I couldn’t see the audience which was quite off putting. Having said this, it was an excellent learning experience. Whether they will do this again who knows, but a huge step forward for me.
Another observation was that I was by a long way the oldest performer with a lot of the performers 50 or 60 years younger than me. You are never too old to start.
I came across this quote from Richard Thompson (no relation as far as I know) of Fairport Convention, which sums up the situation very nicely especially the last sentence.
Michael
PS I risked asking my wife for marks out of ten, a bit of a family thing. She said 7 for guitar and 5 for singing, average 6 so I was pleased with that, and she added I never give marks above 7. She is a very harsh critic of live performances and says it how it is, no sugar coating.
what a massive achievement to even get up in front of that many people and perform, well done hats off to you 
