How odd, all the recent illness and crazy recording sessions had quite a negative effect on my abilty to get on stage; I'd lost my bottle.

So I used the bank holiday to settle into:

1. tightening my recordings
2. rehearsing with Acoustic Moods (although we're still very ragged)
3. rehearsing for a live solo gig

The lay off seems to have made it pretty difficult getting back into things. Even with the band I'm having trouble just switching off and becoming 'part of the machine' in the rhythm section. Dan has crafted an excellent set and am hoping that we've got through the hard part and it'll start returning. Right now it feels like a hard slog.

Oddly even my solo music is the same, am having difficulty remembering it! There's a certain feeling and timbre in my voice for my signature tune (Ethereal Engagement) and it's not quite returning. Had noticed myself backing out of gigs a lot.

So I set a target, a mate was hosting an open mic and I was determined to go. In the past three days solid rehearsal normally see me right... so I set about forcing myself to play a 45 minute set each day of the bank holiday. There was an improvement but not as dramatic as I had hoped. In short I was shaking like a leaf when I stepped on stage! 

I owe some of my friends a huge amount of thanks... Roydan and the others were cheering me on through every number and it meant a lot. Admittedly the later verses of the Times They Are-A-Changing felt good... a first step.

Now I need to build on it.