17-07-2000 Revolver

I think every single person who was at The Basement tonight drove in. My parking spot ended up being further away from the venue than my house, and as I got to the door I was me with a queue that stretched up the street. Covers nights, why do they do so well? I kept telling myself that it was the calibre of artists that attracted the masses, and not necessarily the songs they were playing.

I have to confess I am not a Bob Dylan fan. What can I say? I am a child of the nineties, I rarely listen to anything pre 1994 and I didn't recognise any of the songs I heard, except for maybe that Hurricane thing that I probably caught on a movie trailer at some point. Yes, yes, I know - what about my roots, half the groups I know have been blatantly ripping him off, he's amazing - rah rah rah. If I can't go to a local venue and see it at some point then it's going to be tough for me to get into. Now, this is not to say I didn't enjoy the night, and the rambunctious full capacity room is proof that I was not alone. There were far too many groups and artists performing to go through them all, so a slight overview will have to suffice.

Everyone basically got the chance to play one or two songs of their choice, although as Steve Griffiths pointed out to me, some of them got in quicker than others so the choice may have been limited. The most amusing thing I found was the artists who didn't actually know all of the lyrics to the songs they were singing. Some tried to continue seriously whilst peeking fervently at their notes on the floor, others, like Kylie Burtland and Steve Griffiths & Rachel Holmshaw made light of the fact and hammed it up (which actually made it all the more entertaining). I had to really wonder about some musicians' motives for being on the night - you would assume it was out of a hearty love and respect for the man, but in some cases that's fairly ambiguous. Dominique Fraissard said it perfectly in between his two songs: "This next tune is a compelling story from beginning to end... which is a nice change cos I have no idea what he was going on about in that last one". My favourite performances were from the artists I store on a large pedestal at home: Steve Griffiths & Rachel Holmshaw, Sandy Klose, The Miller's Tale et al, but there weren't really any bad performances.

Due to a big day and giving people lifts I left not long after the full bands kicked in (it was weird watching Muppet band The Fantastic Leslie kick into a serious Dylan tune), and unfortunately missed a few performances like David Lane and Jeff Duff & Joseph Calderazzo (who apparently brought the house down with their version of All Along The Watchtower) that I was keen to see, but such is life.

Congratulations to the Club Acoustica and Um & Ah people for putting such a huge show on, and hopefully everyone who cheered these artists can provide an equally big turn out for their original shows.