So with this dreary weather persisting, placing myself back in February isn't that hard to do!
It feels like we've been in never-ending Winter so far in 2013 and having just supported Paper Aeroplanes on the last leg of their tour last night it brought to mind their song 'Winter Never Comes' and how unfortunately to the contrary it doesn't seem to want to go away at all!!
February consisted of one major event...the release of 'Battles'. A few weeks previous to the album launch show - I'd had the privilege to open for Tanita Tikaram at the wonderful Cadogan Hall in Chelsea - the resident home of the the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was a great venue to play and as you'd expect the acoustics were amazing! I certainly hope to play there again some day.
A few days later I was up in North London to record a session with the guys over at The Crypt Sessions - the first video of which is now available to watch here. Following that I then popped in to do an in-store performance for the lovely peeps over at Spillers Records in Cardiff. 'Battles' would go on to be their biggest selling album by a Welsh artist in February (a very nice accolade to have).
On the 18th Febraury 'Battles' was officially released, and to celebrate that fact, we put on a gig at one of my favourite London venues, St Pancras Old Church.
It was a complete sell-out beforehand so we knew it had the makings to be a great night. I had asked my friend and former tour-buddy Lotte Mullan to open up and she served up yet another lovely set of country/americana/folky-tinged tunes. Go check her out!
I was accompanied once again by my good friends Mary Erskine (of Me for Queen) on cello/piano and Sarah Howells (of Paper Aeroplanes) on vocals. Both are extremely talented musicians in their own right and if you haven't yet heard their other musical projects then click on those links for a taster.
I had my friend (and rather talented photographer) Rosie Collins come take some pictures and as you can see she got some real crackers. You can scroll through the rest of them over at my Flickr page here.
Another friend of mine Ben Williams helped us capture even more of the evening through filming a video with help from Rosie and Jamie to accompany one of the songs off 'Battles', 'Don't Believe in Magic'. Watch it here -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Q4PBdmArI
We had decided to record the audio that evening and decided to get some CDs made of the concert as a little memento to all those who were there.
Artwork was made by Anika Mottershaw.
These mini-albums are also now available to purchase at all of my future shows.
We kept four songs off the CD for those who can't make a live-show and put them on a digital EP available to download. A taster of which can be heard below -
Here's hoping that June has a few more days of sunshine in store for us, for as a wise man once said..."we all need sunshine in our lives"... :) x
