Playing In The Wood

Friday 10th September: I know, I know... It's been a while. Sadly, for the best part of a month my only exposure to live music was a Turkish trio who "serenaded" us during a meal while on holiday. I would have reviewed them, but I don't generally like writing bad reviews. (Although one band that I recently expressed some dislike for added the review to their Facebook page and took some degree of pleasure from what I had written when, perhaps, the most favourable part of the review was that I seemed to be the only person in the room not to like them. I guess any publicity is good publicity.) Anyway, normal service has now been resumed.

Adam Dawson must be doing something right. The new guitarist for Breathing Space - now fully integrated after appearing on stage at the Cambridge Rock Festival (which none of us attended) - not only managed to drag all four regulars away from our usual venues, so much so that one of us couldn't even find the place without help, to see him play tonight but an optional plan "B" of heading back to familiar haunts at the halfway stage was quickly abandoned.

Tonight he was playing the Royal Oak, in a much smaller room than the Roman Bath, where we first saw him. The smaller room meant a much more intimate gig, while the presence of a group of Germans, attired in some form of traditional dress and drinking from a four-pint glass boot (!), led to a much more fun and light-hearted evening. This despite one of our continental cousins seeming to be under the impression that he was at some sort of hoe-down (!!).

Adam himself played a similar set to last time, playing both six and twelve string guitars, mixing the modern with the not-so-modern and the familiar with one or two that I didn't recognise. He even turned his hand to a couple of requested songs that he wasn't overly familiar with himself, bravely playing along while everybody else in the room tried their best to remember the words to Bowie's Space Oddity and The Eagles' Hotel California, adding even more fun to the proceedings. He only admitted to playing one song of his own, current single Lazy Susan, but I have a feeling that the first song played was Omniscient Scarecrow from his 2003 album - I didn't recognise it as anybody else, but it did sound naggingly familiar and definitely had the word "scarecrow" in the lyrics...

At the end of the evening, which stretched well beyond the advertised 11pm finish, we chatted with Adam and he informed us that, although it may currently seem quiet on the Breathing Space front, they are rehearsing every week, as well as writing for the fourth album and that things are progressing nicely, albeit with a slightly different sound to past output. While there may not be a tour until into next year, the band have recently been booked for a CRS gig in Rotherham.

A (more or less) full set-list for tonight is:
The song that may, or may not, be Omniscient Scarecrow, Mumford and Sons (Little Lion Man), The Magic Numbers (Forever Lost), Lady Gaga (Poker Face), Kings of Leon (Use Somebody), Ralph McTell (Streets of London), unknown, Damien Rice (Cannonball), Snow Patrol (Chasing Cars), Turin Brakes, unknown, Eric Clapton (Tears in Heaven), Mumford and Sons, Newton Faulkner, Adam Dawson (Lazy Susan), Take That (Shine), Bob Dylan (Tambourine Man), Beach Boys (Sloop John B, I think...) David Bowie (Space Oddity), Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here), The Eagles (Hotel California), The Beatles, The Dubliners (Wild Rover), The Kinks (Lola, Dedicated Follower of Fashion), Eric Clapton (Wonderful Tonight)