Travels With My Bongos pt. 7 - Riki's Birthday

Riki asked me if I would play music at his birthday party about six months before the actual party itself. This is what you call advance booking! It was also a remarkable statement of trust given that Riki has been out of the country every time that I have been performing in public (a coincidence, I am sure) and he also missed the run of housewarming parties that were the highlight of everyone's mid-decade. He was kind of taking it on trust that I knew what I was doing.

I had six months to consider what to do. Riki's Dad is the lead singer of a very good covers band and I knew that they would be playing as well, so it was not as if I was going to be the best musician there by a long stretch. However, I thought that a few songs which had immediate impact would work.

My thinking was that at a birthday party, people would be drunk. Sophisticated wordplay and rhythmic intrigue were probably out. I also had to do something on the bongos given that I go under the name Dai Bongos (though, of course, I do confess to have a keyboard-playing alter ego, Dai Dim Bongos). However, to do the occasion justice, I really had to take my keyboard. I reckoned that three songs would be enough and then started to scan my songbook for a few likely ones.

A few weeks before the event, Riki checked to make sure that I would still be available to perform and I asked him the key question - would there be children present? His answer was that there would be and that changed everything, obviously! I have the experience of performing at the Penarth Open Mic night with an eleven year old virtuoso violinist in the audience and I also used to edit my words a little when performing at Talisman, but I generally think that dating songs are not that effective with the under tens.

This is a little bit of a shame as I think that my best work is in some of the ones that might cover topics that are not suitable for younger ears. I love my mash-up of social media bragging, dating failure and 70s game shows entitled "Let's See What You Could Have Won" but it is both lyrically too complicated for a drunken audience and not suitable for anyone who has not yet learned to appreciate a song of gentle bitterness when they hear it.

The venue was Pencoed Rugby Club and this had its own challenges. As soon as I walked in, I heard the sound of very drunk rugby fans in the bar next to the function room. That was not an audience who I could entertain ... but luckily next door the main band was setting up. I wheeled my keyboard, stand and bongo case over to the sound man and asked him about amplification.

"Have you brought your own?" he asked and I replied that I had assumed that I could plug into his band's. Initially he seemed skeptical about this, but I have been amplified by enough people now to know that it actually only needs one standard lead to the mixing desk for the keyboard and a microphone angled to my mouth for singing. Oddly enough, the next day I was talking to someone who is giving up running an Open Mic night about whether I could take over running that event. His first reaction was 'oh, but you'll need amplification equipment' and when I said, 'I can get that', he added 'big amps and everything'. Honestly, I have a huge respect for people who do the sound, but I do know what the leads and the amps look like now and it is just equipment.

I left my instruments at the side of the club while the band did their first set. They are called The Boogiemen and they are very good. I have seen them play in a small corner of the Plough & Harrow a few times and they do great covers and get the crowd up and moving. Pencoed Rugby Club's function room is long and rectangular and frankly not suitable for music. However, while the crowd at the back were talking and only playing passing attention to the music, there was an enthused crowd at the front and a lot of dancing. I am always a little bit surprised when people tell me that they would be so nervous performing in front of people. Maybe there is a performer's gene but I am terrified five minutes before going on stage, but completely comfortable when I am on the stage. Seeing how 'up' the crowd was, I was starting to get very nervous about how novelty bongo-based entertainment would go down with them.

When the band took a break, I was invited to the front of the room (no stage) and the sound man connected my keyboard with a long lead and found a mike to angle into my face. A couple of soundchecks later we were ready for ... well, the crowd had not noticed that someone new was in front of them. It had been quite fun setting up actually - one of the Boogiemen noticed me remove my right shoe before playing. I am not sure if he smiled out of some musicians' solidarity over strange pre-performance habits or just out of sheer fear that I was going to leave my shoe among the equipment.

Luckily, one of the band members decided to be MC, grabbed the mike and introduced me. I thought that I would start with "Leaving Card" because it has no swearing, an easy to follow chorus and it tends to go down well with people. One of the band started playing tambourine along to it, which was lovely. I messed up the odd line, but covered it and could see a few rows of people laughing at the front and then it was clear that no-one could hear me behind that. That hardly mattered. Some people even picked up the chorus of 'Leaving Card' and sang along -I love it when people do that and it confirmed to me that they were a crowd up for a singalong.

I quickly bumped 'Paradise (via City Road)' up the set list. This is the one I wrote in Australia with all the 'hey', 'oy' and claps for the audience to do. There was a group of women with small children to my right who were very keen on singing along especially. When I rehearsed the crowd, they shouted 'hey!' with a louder enthusiasm than I have heard from any other crowd who has heard that song. It was still only the front rows, but it was what was needed. I will admit that they also sang during the choruses and in lots of places where there was no audience participation, but I was happy to laugh along with their enthusiasm.

I decided to give them a final song and go through 'Desperate Rhymes for Desperate Times', which some of you will know as the song with all the bad puns about women's names in it. That is a good example of a song that has laughs but which does not need the audience to really be paying attention. For those of you who think that it is simple though, bear in mind that the lovely percussionist from the band had picked up a washboard at this point and was determined to play along. This simple song has three different time signatures and he had to give up. I think that there is a rule in music that when things sound simple, then it is often a complicated effect to create.

I finished with some bongo-based parodies, though obviously missing out the jokes about having sex in a Travelodge. Again, you work out your audience ... or rather, you are careful what you sing around their children. I also cut things shorter than I might do with that one. You get a sense from your audience of when to stop and I felt that they had had just about enough novelty for the night, so I closed on the last of the parodies.

The band came back for their second set, it was great, everyone danced and I got to sit at the back of the room and realise just how bad the acoustics were back there. A few people came up to me and said how much they had enjoyed it and one man kept trying to make jokes to me (men do that, no wonder women often make better audiences). I had a pint and relaxed. I was pleased with how it went though in some ways I should really give Riki the chance to hear some of the uncensored material. All in all though, I think that it was a worthy tribute to his birthday.

Riki also gave me a line which I think might go on advertising posters - "people who could hear it thought it was really good."

That is good enough for me!

(also available for weddings, bah mitvahs, funerals, divorce parties and well, anything else to be honest).