The Paul Jeffery Trio was out again last Friday night (Oct 21st) playing for the Keighley/Worth Valley Beer Festival in the Oxenhope railway shed. As venues go this was fairly unique. I can honestly say I've never played in a room with so many huge steam trains before, nor have I played in such a nice smelling room either (I like the oil smell). I have however played in many rooms that smelt terrible.

The room was also enormous and contained hundreds of people and Lord knows how many beers. We played for an hour and I was really pleased with our set. Music at beer festivals is largely for background purposes but it was still more or less well received.

This Week:

I've a fairly hectic week playing solo at Verve in Leeds tomorrow night (Thurs 27th) at about 9pm. I haven't done many solo original sets lately so I'm really looking forward to that. Then on Friday and Saturday I'm playing keyboards for a new band, Blueprint, with both gigs over Bingley way.

Music:

I heard the new Evanescence album. No really, I did. You must play it loud. Over the years there have been 2 occasions when it's been suggested I produce a song in their style. Unfortunately both times this occured after I'd finished the song and produced it in a different style. Now I've finally heard them properly and it's really impressive. I'm not sure if I'll get asked to produce something like that again, but just in case maybe I should do a version of all my songs like that.

I must apologise for the lack of blog action lately. I'm well behind with news updates although I can't believe it's over a month since I got chance to get on here....so I'll do my best to rattle through some of the happenings since what looks like Sept 14th!!

The BitterSweetShop did a gig at the New Conservatory in Leeds on Thurs Oct 6th. We were the 'headline' slot on what is basically an open mic night. Main feature of the venue is the grand piano which is in fairly good condition and would be even better facing side on rather than backwards with the player facing the back wall and having his/her back to the audience! Needless to say I didn't offer to turn it round!

We played 6 songs which went well and despite not being able to see the audience Katie tells me they were listening and watching!

I must just quickly mention the Atlanta Soul gig at the Hilton on Sat 8th in Manchester. This was an amazing night with such diverse acts as Anthony Costa (from Blue) and Bruce Airhead sharing the bill (and dressing room) with us. Please google Bruce Airhead to find out what he does because if I try and describe it in words on here you'll think I've totally lost it this time.

I was away for a few days on the Isle Of Man last week before returning and playing with the trio last Saturday at the Abbey Inn. It was a fairly quiet night but good to play a longer set of acoustic stuff. Highlight of the night happened before we'd played a note when a punter asked who the singer on the piped music was that she liked, well it was one of my songs.....needless to say she'd gone home by the time we went on stage. That is the true story of being a musician!

Plenty more going on but that's the last 5 weeks or so in a nutshell, cheers.