Ha ha ha bonk
I was out last night at the Playhouse in Norwhag to see Otis Lee Crenshaw in concert. Rich Hall was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the support act so we had about 45 minutes of stand-up, a 15 minute interval and then Otis Lee Crenshaw and his backing band for just over an hour.
All good stuff, although I regretted having seen Rich Hall on “Live at the Apollo” last week and also having purchased Otis Lee Crenshaw’s 2001 CD “Live - London, Not Tennessee“. I don’t regret it because the material bad, but rather because it would appear that in the past seven years, Mr Crenshaw has only added one or possibly two songs to his repertoire. Oh, and he didn’t sing the stalking song. Or the Scrabble song for that matter.
I must say that Mr Hall Mr Crenshaw is certainly gifted at adapting his songs for the audience, even when the audience member he picked on for one of them turned out to be an archaeologist - that seemed to throw him briefly although he recovered well.
It struck me that it’s curious how expectations differ when going out to be a band compared to a comedian. With a band, you’re generally hoping that most of the set will comprise songs you know and, presumably, like (why else would you be there?) with a smatter ditties from the latest album. With a comedian, you’d prefer not to hear a large amount of stuff you’ve already heard - Lyle posted on this point recently.
This means I’m currently purging all memory of anything I’ve ever seen or heard Mark Steel do before his gig next Thursday, also at the Playhouse. I’ve also booked tickets for three shows next year - Marks Watson, Thomas, the lovely Miss Definitely-not-a-Mark Lucy Porter (all in March at the Playhouse) and Richard Herring in April at the Arts Centre.