Review: Come Strut Your Stuff open floor poetry and acoustic music event
Monday 7th September 2009 @ The Egg Cafe, Newington
Come Strut Your Stuff is a well established and popular open floor night which takes place on the first Monday of each month at the Egg Café on Newington. Upon climbing the three flights of stairs to The Egg you are greeted by the soothing sounds of Stan the Harper (Stan Ambrose – Radio Merseyside presenter and all round local legend) and the hustle and bustle of the busy café with the sound of clattering cutlery and lively chatter. The best way to describe the look of the café is ‘shabby chic’. I love its mis-matching furniture, purple beams and French windows which on warm nights such as this are left open, giving an airy feel to the place and allowing the sounds of the city to provide a backdrop to the evening with great views across the city’s rooftops. The café serves only veggie and vegan food which is wholesome and delicious, offers plenty of choice and is very reasonably priced. The Egg does not have a licence to serve alcohol but you can take along your own booze provided you order a main meal and pay a corkage of £1 per bottle.
Organiser and regular host Graham Holland
Photo © 2009 Keith Ainsworth
The event is hosted by Liverpool Acoustic’s Graham Holland and he does an admirable job of keeping things running smoothly throughout the night. It can get pretty noisy in the café due to the number of people packed into its relatively small space. The host occasionally encourages the audience to ‘boo’ any particularly rowdy groups in order to try to keep the noise levels to a minimum once performers take to the floor, which is essential as there is no microphone.
Tony and Lily Kehoe perform at the Egg Cafe
Photo © 2009 Keith Ainsworth
The night is divided into three sets with the first beginning at 8pm. Performers are advised to arrive early to book their spots as due to the popularity of the night the slots tend to have been filled by around 7.30pm. Graham’s co-host on this particular night Tony Kehoe takes the bookings and introduced some of the acts as well as performing some of his own songs from his albums It’s No Coincidence and Not Everything Must Lead to Nothing and accompanying his daughter, lovely little Lily, in her regular performance of The Zutons’ ‘Valerie’.
All kinds of performance are encouraged and welcomed from acoustic musicians, poets, storytellers and (on this occasion) magicians! Musicians are limited to two songs and poets to five minutes to ensure that as many artists as possible are able to perform and also that each performer knows exactly how much time they have so they don’t need to feel rushed. The slots are booked on a first come first served basis which means that there is no favouritism of artists and each night is different. There is no set ratio of poets to musicians, meaning that some nights may lean slightly more towards music and vice versa but generally, and particularly on this night, there is an even and varied spread of entertainment. The format works very well, with 10-15 minute intervals in between sets allowing the audience time to grab a coffee/cake and enjoy more of Stan’s harp playing.
Open floor poetry and acoustic music
Photo © 2009 Keith Ainsworth
I have a lot of respect for all of the performers but to name a few who I particularly enjoyed on this occasion there were brothers Tom and Ed who performed a witty reworking of the Cole Porter song ‘Let’s do it, Let’s Fall In Love’. Warrington based poet Terry Caffrey performed three poems: the first about the excitement of waiting to catch a train to travel to a first date, the second about the wonder of watching his pregnant wife’s stomach grow whilst she was carrying their first child and the third about losing a friend to Aids. All three were powerfully written and confidently performed with myself, and from what I could tell, the rest of the crowd being completely engaged by his style and delivery. He certainly made an impression on me and I hope to hear more from him at future nights. There was singer James, a first time performer from South Africa who sang two self-penned songs with a sweet yet powerful voice reminiscent of Jeff Buckley, accompanied by his rather battered looking acoustic guitar and a notebook containing scribbled reminders of his lyrics. Regular poet and acoustic performer Tom George treated us to three of his poems. He is a confident and entertaining performer and tells tales of coffee shop waitresses he admires from afar, flailing September flies he pities and cups he buys in the hope that they will be used as a precursor to ‘shagging’ but which regrettably go unused. Another regular poet is Liam whose poems I look forward to as they are always imaginative and often quite surreal. The topics of this month’s offerings were his sniper-toting granny who takes out neighbours from a vantage point on her roof and a bored man who met his untimely demise whilst carrying out his pointless and thankless day job of measuring an unnamed road!
The event has become a monthly treat for me and I would highly recommend it as a night of varied entertainment in a great venue and to any budding performers I would entreat you to “come strut your stuff’!
© 2009 Gemma Kelly – gemma[at]liverpoolacoustic.co.uk
Liverpool Acoustic – liverpoolacoustic.co.uk
The next Come Strut Your Stuff is on Monday 5th October, starting at 8pm prompt. If you want to perform you need to be there before 7.30pm to put your name down on the set list and to grab a chair.
Full details from comestrutyourstuff.co.uk