Last Monday night I went with my father, brother, sister and brother in-law, as well as one of my brother's mates to the Paul Colman solo gig at the Princess Theatre.I enjoyed the show - Nainby opened for PC and they did an awesome job, thoroughly enjoyed your set girls (if you read this ;-p) and Paul did a lot of the old classic PC3 songs. I did kind of feel it lacked some of the enthusiasm and spontaneity of the old Paul Colman gigs. He was still funny, sang well, but didn’t seem to improvise as much or play with the crowd as much.
But boy can he play the guitar!
He was slightly upstaged at one point though, the battery in his amp ran out and he asked the crowd if anyone had a 9volt. One of the techies ran one up, but Paul was kind of hoping someone else could change the battery in his guitar for him. He asked if anyone in the crowd played, a young bloke in the row in front of us put up his hand. Paul called him onto the stage and sent him backstage to swap the guitars amp battery. Paul proceeded to kill time with a story but Chris (the young guitarist) was back within 3 or 4 minutes with the job complete.
Slightly shocked it had been done so quick Paul commented he must be a pretty good guitarist, to which Chris replied “I am”, so Paul jokingly said “Well why don’t you play one of my songs then??”
Hmmmm I admit to feeling a little jealous of Chris’ skills, and his chance to stand up and play and sing with Paul Colman.
In the end it was a really enjoyable night of music and laughter… was totally worth squeezing into such a tight venue.
P.S: Thanks to the Paul Colman forum members who have posted up some photos from the gig, I didn't get a good enough seat to take any shots. www.paulcolman.com
3 comments:
Karyn and I talked about going, but never got round to booking tickets. Which is why we weren't there.
Must disagree re your comment that it "lacked the enthusiasm and spontanaeity of the old Paul Colman gigs". Well actually to be honest I don't remember the old gigs well enough to judge, but i thought he had exactly the right mix of PC spontenaity and music this time. I knew he was a good entertainer so i knew it would be good - but he totally exceeded my expectations. It was an incredible concert, amazingly entertaining and we didn't stop laughing the whole night. I also liked how he got a bit deep & meaningful and shared some quite personal stuff - with a great message/moral behind it all too. Very impressed.
I didn't see you there? Although there WERE a lot of people...and we exited via the verandah cos it wasn't clogged...sooooo it's probably more my fault than anything!
Shelley
Paul just seemed to do his songs how they were written... in the past (in his prime maybe...) he would just play the music and sing, add in little adlibs and get the crowd much more involved.
This time it felt more like he's not as comfortable with his own music anymore (understandable with how involved the newsboys must be), so he just played them through without trying anything to 'different'.
It was still enjoyable though.
And Shel I did see you, but the place was too packed to get over and say hi sorry.
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