14 Jun, 2010 Revitalised Minds!
It’s been quite a shift in many ways for me going from touring with Lostboy! AKA to the recently begun summer shows with Simple Minds.
Going from playing a set of completely unproven live songs, to an almost two hour set of classics, it has also seen me going to playing from a round a crowd of around 200 to a crowd of 25,000 plus – and that was all in the space of a few days. The challenge of making it a seamless transition (or at least seem so) has been fun. It is the dual existence that I craved and I intend to make more of it.
That it is a rare kind of energy creative that I have been running on over the last couple of years is surely obvious, rare enough that I even cannot put a name on it. But I bow to it in any case as I remember clearly the pain of going through periods were the spark of creativity was way too elusive, and that was misery!
Prior to our Paris show this week we have bagged some rehearsal days. Not to rehearse, but to finalise the arrangements on two or three brand new Simple Minds songs that are definitely still “works in progress” yet could benefit from a few trial runs before eventually being recorded. They are not the finished articles in any sense, but I am sure that if given an airing their potential will announce itself.
If it happens (no guarantee) it would be audacious enough of us to play these previously unheard songs at the famous Bataclan venue. The old and the “happening new” sitting together in a fulsome set would suit me just perfect – in highlighting the strength of our far reaching past while confirming that we determinedly belong to the future.
Can someone tell me the last time we debuted a song live that has yet to be recorded? Was it Ghostdancing at Live Aid, all those years ago? When I was a 26 year old. If so, good to think that 25 years later SM are once again playing a risky little game (Come on now! How many other classic bands would turn up in Paris and whip out three newly written and unrecorded songs within their set?)
New songs are like new cells within the body. They not only sustain, they revitalise life itself. The artistic life in this case!
Here’s hoping it all works out!
Jim Kerr