I originally posted this gig report on the Little Fish Big Pond website, but I thought I might as well stick it up on here as well!

So, the first LFBP gig of 2008 was an acoustic set at The Grey Lady in Tunbridge Wells, on one of Paul Dunton’s music nights.

We were the second of four acts playing that evening, the others being Maidstone duo Staring at Goats, Paul’s partner in crime Ollie Nichols and our buddies and regular Fishbowl performers Sound Sanctuary, who were headlining for the evening.

We’d had a rehearsal earlier in the week to decide on the set and run through it a couple of times - much needed as we hadn’t played together for weeks. The whole thing was very democratic, we each selected two songs for the eight-song set and voted on the choice of two covers.

First up was “Better Man” a song off the new album Eye Candy, which went OK. Bit of an “interesting” guitar solo from Craig on that one (I think he got away with it!). Then Martin got his bodhran out for “Point of Departure”, which swung along quite nicely, then it was Craig’s turn to take lead vocals for “Good News”. That song always seems to go down well with the crowd and tonight was no exception, we got a big cheer at the end of it.

Now that the audience were warmed up a bit, we played a couple of blasts from the past - “Still I Stay” and “Can’t Get Away” from our first album (In the Can), both pretty upbeat tunes that got some decent cheers. We had planned to play “24/7″ next, but time was running out, so Mr Dunton got up on stage to announce the two alternatives for our “people’s choice” (i.e. a cover song selected by the audience) - Teenage Kicks by The Undertones or It’s Only Natural by Crowded House.

Teenage Kicks was the hands-down winner, so we grooved into our very bijou-sounding acoustic version, then finished off with another old favourite from our first album, “Doing the Right Thing”. Excellent response from the crowd, great vibe, all in all a pretty successful gig!

We stuck around afterwards to listen to “melancholy Ollie” settle the audience down with his beautiful songs, and Sound Sanctuary finished the evening off by playing a blinding set, especially their Warren G/Nate Dogg cover (pure class!).

We recorded the evening and you can get the MP3 from the Little Fish Big Pond website.

Next gig we have planned is at Fishbowl Acoustic at the Trinity Arts in Tunbridge Wells on Saturday 19th April.