Yes, I know this is a day late (only one day late because of the bank holiday!). But, it will be extra long and have shedloads of content. So there!
I had an exciting start to my Bank Holiday. I played a set at Ainsty’s Got Talent – a local talent competition being run at York pub The Ainsty. I’m friends with the organiser and I must confess, she had to work to get me to agree to do it, since I usually find the adrenaline rush of competitions a tad uncomfortable, but I ended up having a great night – it was a fantastic experience having such a big (and slightly scary, though not in a bad way!) crowd to play to, and with only three songs with which to make my mark, it was a challenge to narrow down the set to something that would best match the mood.
I’m sad that I missed some of the acts. Friday night meant a dash back from work, and by the time we’d eaten, gathered gear, and made our way to the pub, some of the acts had already been up. Fortunately, the lovely organiser had the fortitude to film everything, so let me just say now that all videos were filmed by Caroline Grant of Le Grande Management. She did a cracking job, and a more welcoming host and organiser could not be wished for.
Without further ado, let me introduce the acts of Ainsty’s Got Talent, heat 5, in order of appearance:
Chrissy and Kirsty (Pole Dancing)
I tried pole dancing once. Dear god it’s hard. These girls have some awesome upper body strength, and the teamwork required for some of the moves is very evident in the video. A great, and unusual, opening act, beautifully choreographed and athletic to watch.
Meg Fowler (Singer-Songwriter)
This fourteen year old singer-songwriter had the audience singing along for much of her set, which included Jolene, featured below. Great vocals, instrumental competence, and a self assured performance for one so young.
Toni Feetenby (Vocalist) WINNER
This lady had the crowd in the palm of her hand from the start, with ambitious renditions of Let It Go, What’s Goin’ On and My Heart Will Go On. With bags of stage presence and confidence, she’ll go far, I’ve no doubt.
Melody Simpson (Vocalist)
Another young contestant, at just 12 years old, Melody took the stage and owned it, showing no signs of nerves in front of a massive crowd. Attitude and presence characterized her cracking and energy-filled performance.
Just Alam (Singer-Songwriter)
Alam performed a mixture of covers and originals in his strong vocal and acoustic guitar set. With his expressive voice and experienced presence, he brought the mellow to the Ainsty, and it was well done indeed. My favourite was actually his original, but the video wasn’t made available, so I’ve gone for my second favourite of his, a cover of Take It Easy.
Erm. Me.
Can’t really review my set. No-one threw rotten veg, yadda yadda. I did Dark Side of Me (from Riptides), an a capella version of Perfect (originally by Fairground Attraction) and finished with a track off the new EP, Rota Fortunae. I’ll leave you with the latter:
James Witchwood (Fiddler) RUNNER-UP
One of my personal favourites of the night, this lad plays a mean, mean fiddle. And he sings. He blew us all away with his rendition of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”. Here it is:
And that was Ainsty’s Got Talent. Heat 5 at any rate. There are another couple of heats to go, including the wildcard heat in which James will be competing for a place in the final, so if you’re free, I highly recommend going down and cheering the acts on!
The rest of the weekend passed in a haze of recovering from the adrenaline rush of Friday night, reading, watching silly movies (9 and The Hunger Games) and continuing to mix the EP. It’s going well I think, with four out of six tracks basically done, and the other two nearly there. I’m still trying to finalise a solution to selling digitally online, since I’ve had some issues with Selz (file names and metadata being lost on test downloads) and as yet no-one has come back to me about a resolution. Aside from that, and their pesky policy of not allowing sellers to set a price below £1 (no use at all if you are selling singles) they’re very good, and I’d really like to use them properly but at the moment the functionality and options just aren’t there. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.
And that’s me signing off for this installment. Have a great week!
All media in this post recorded by Caroline Grant/Le-Grande Event Management. For more videos of the night, please visit (and subscribe!) to Le-Grande Event Management’s YouTube Channel 🙂
FALLING IN GREEN 