I decided I wanted to play the ukulele after seeing a band called The Pukes at Rebellion Festival in Blackpool last year. It may sound odd, but they're a group of around 20 people - mostly girls - who play punk covers on ukes. Look them up on YouTube; you won't regret it.
Yes, it is odd that I, a miserable twat, should want to play an instrument that turns pretty much any song into a party song, but that's what I aimed to do.
I began playing a few simple songs and after a while I even recorded a few and uploaded them to Soundcloud (most of them are truly terrible, but if you want to hear them you can find them here: https://soundcloud.com/uke-hunts).
A few months ago I became aware that York was to have its first Ukulele Festival this year and considered the possibility of playing. There would be an open mic afternoon in The Habit and it was possible to reserve a slot, so I contacted the organisers. At this point I was full of bravado. This changed when I was given a timeslot about a month before the event. Now it was beginning to sink in that I was going to play in front of a room full of people who may or may not hate me. I'd told too many people that I was going to do it to back out without looking like a big, yellow-bellied chicken. Shit!
I would practice solidly and pick five songs I could play well enough to at least not look like a blithering incompetent. Having made this important decision I then decided to go to the pub every night and not bother practicing for almost two weeks.
It was then suddenly only ten days to go and I started practicing with a vengeance. Well, I chose some songs and played them a couple of times each night. I then went away for a week and arrived home the day before the festival. This left me little time to practice my already criminally under-practiced songs, but I reckoned I could possibly wing it.
I woke early that Saturday in a state of blind panic that I was going to make a colossal tit of myself and set about doing anything I could to avoid thinking about my impending doom. Nothing worked and I ran through some bad versions of the songs. I knew at this point that I would need to be a little bit drunk for it to work at all.
I arrived at the pub five pints of Guinness before I should play and heard some terrible singers sing some terrible versions of some terrible songs. This was going to be great! I wasn't as bad as any of these people! But I spoke too soon. The guy before me was frankly brilliant, singing and playing like a pro (I still maintain that he was a ringer).
My time arrived and I sat in front of the mic with enough sheets of lyrics and chords to hide behind and just hoped that my death would be quick and painless. My nervousness was made worse by spilling my own pint with my foot a mere five seconds after warning someone else to "be careful" near it.
I opened up with The Jam's That's Entertainment and people seemed to hate me less than I thought, a few even joining in on the chorus.
Obviously my decision to follow that with Alkaline Trio's Bloodied Up, a song which I'm close to 100% certain no-one in that room had ever heard before, was ill-judged. It was made worse by me stopping playing and telling some overly-talky newcomers to "shut the fuck up". At least that got a laugh from a few in the audience and I struggled my way to the end of the song.
I could see light at the end of the tunnel now and asked the crowd if they liked The Ramones. "You won't in a minute," I quipped after some murmurs of approval and launched into the lesser-known The KKK Took My Baby Away. A slight ripple of applause followed and I was beginning to feel less like soiling myself.
I decided to abandon a song I'd only ever played three times and move straight into show-stopper, 99 Red Balloons. At this point a few people really joined in and I actually smiled a bit. I decided to stop this jollity by singing the last verse in German, possibly one of the world's least melodic languages and one I don't even speak. People were amused by this and it seemed I could do no wrong at this point. I decided it was best not to test this theory and ended my set there, to clapping and cheers (mostly from those who'd turned up specifically to watch me humiliate myself).
A few other performers said assorted positive comments as I left the stage, but I was most grateful for my friends who came along. Thanks to Louise, Adam, Laura, Josh and Amanda for all insisting I was less shit than I thought I was.
As painful as it was, I'd do it all again tomorrow if I could. I'm clearly mental.
I've since recorded a few self-penned offerings too and they're at https://ukehunts.bandcamp.com/.
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