Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Thursday night Nikki and I went to see one David Ford do a gig up in the newly-trendified bit of Camden, at Lock 17, which was formerly known as the much less trendy sounding Dingwalls. We went to the local Lloyds No. 1 bar for food though, which is also new and trendified, next to the newly opened Fopp. If they keep it up like this, Camden won’t be a shithole soon. But then, think of the character it’ll lose. Where will I go to get offered drugs if not there? (well, Brixton, but that’s besides the point.)

I think it’s the fourth time I’ve seen Ford do his solo stuff live, though these days “solo” is a bit of a loose term because there were about 6 people on stage. Both the support acts were pretty good, the first was called Eliza Wren Payne. She played some acoustic stuff that would probably draw comparison to a lot of other female singer-songwriters if I could only remember their names, but it was decent enough to make me look out the website in search of freebie MP3s earlier. The second support was called Si Connelly and while he had areally great guitar sound, I wasn’t too keen on the vocals. Could’ve been way worse though.

The thing that struck me most about the gig was that compared to previous ones, this seemed utterly packed. Given how little this tour was promoted, I consider that to be a good thing. Not only was it packed, people were actually paying attention and there was a really good atmosphere around the place. Last time I saw Ford play to a room that packed, it was 15 year old kids. The average age has gone up a little since.

My favourite song in the set was Katie, which I remember hearing for the first time down at the little heavenly social off Oxford Street about six months ago, and instantly loving even then. It was a particularly excellent version last night though. The encore included a cover version of Afternoon Delight that was great too, partially because like all the best cover versions, it straddles the boundary between homage and humour. About halfway through he stopped playing and said “This is a song about afternoon lovemaking.” with more than a hint of glee.

We managed to grab a bootleg off the website which is of excellent quality, and demonstrates quite well what a great performer he is. And there’s another tour in February that I would recommend to anyone with a spare tenner.

Of course, staying late at the gig meant I was utterly wiped out all day on Friday. We went for a team meal at Nandos at lunchtime though, which was exactly what I needed after a few hours of horrendous haze. It’s been a hell of a week, in which the site managed to die twice. January is apparantly a big month for travel, and we’re only halfway through. God help me.