I arrived in London and the first thing I did was head north on the tube to visit my childhood friend Lucy who is minutes away from giving birth to her first son. In the morning I reunited with old friends from Cardiff University. As we walked around the city I felt completely energized by London. The smell, the people, the action before my eyes was so stimulating and inspiring. In the afternoon my friend Dylan tagged along with me to Winchester for my forth house concert. It was a Sofar Sounds show in a tea shop in the city center. When we got off the train a bright double rainbow greeted us and the good omen was welcome.
After stuffing our bellies with Indian food we headed to the gig and already the tiny tea shop was filled to the max with people sitting on the floor and standing behind the bar. I was the first act to play and when I plugged in my gear the worst thing happened. The UK voltage blew the fuse in my Nord keyboard and it was completely toast. I kicked myself for not thinking about the different electricity here and I was gutted that I couldn't perform. Luckily I had my little op-1 and I played one little tune on it before resigning myself to the fate of my broken Nord. The Sofar host Steve and his team were so sympathetic and he called on his friend Richard who was in the audience for advice. To my surprise, Richard who worked for an electronics company jumped in his car and headed to his lab and brought back all the bits to fix my Nord. At the very end of the night when all the other acts had played, we plugged my Nord back in and rejoiced when it all seemed to be okay. They asked me if I wanted to play a few songs at the end even though it was late and I did even though I knew we'd miss the last train back to London. The audience hung in there with me and I sang them some songs and at the end Richard and his wife invited Dylan and I to crash at their home. They had six kids, one which had just returned back to uni that day so we took her empty room. We drank wine and in the morning I played legos with their beautiful children, drank coffee, jumped on their trampoline and caught the train back to London town.
It's moments like this, strangers who are kind and generous that are making this tour possible, that fill my heart with love and give me hope and strength to keep going. <3
Thank you Winchester. You are storybook worthy after all.
