On the way, we heard someone trying to attract our attention – “Hey guys, excuse me…” I thought it was a ticket tout, and we upped our pace a bit.. “Please guys, excuse me!”
So we stopped and turned, anti-tout scowls at the ready, but it wasn’t a tout. “Hi, my name’s Ed. I’m in the band.” It was too. It was Ed Robertson, singer with Barenaked Ladies.
He told us that he recognised us from our clip of Brian Wilson on YouTube. He’d liked it and emailed it to the other guys in the band, and now they knew us! He knew our name, that I played tablas, the club…
We took a couple of pix with him, and went off, just a bit hyped up, to enjoy the gig. Two numbers in, and Ed tells the whole story to all 4,500 fans at the Hammersmith Apollo. Then does a human-beat-box-vinyl-scratch of our name in their improv rap.
He describes the acoustic section of their show as “going for a kind of Aysgarth-vibe”. Then stands on the front edge of the stage at the end of the gig shouting our name until he spots us.
Anyway, don't take my word for it. The gig was recorded and was available on a USB stick after the show. Here's a montage of our namechecks and that.
Took a week or two while to come down from that.Latest update, I got a MySpace friend request from Steven Page last night.
(I approved it.)
