Date: 01/11/06

Venue: Barfly

Nothing is better than going to a gig that you didn’t have any expectations for and end up being blown away by the performance.

This was the case tonight. Simple Kid was an act that I was aware of but never really paid much attention to, my mistake. Skiv has been a fan for a while and asked if i would like to go see him, I thought, ok, why the feck not.

I am glad I did. As I said I was aware of him and got the 1st album off Skiv so was aware of the tracks, I liked it but never really had it on regular rotation on my iPod or anything. That changed after seeing him live. In the same way that watching Sigur Ros live and Mercury Rev live was enough to make me a fan, SK’s performance last night did the same.

It has been a while since i have been at Barfly to see a band, it was busy, the crowd got into it and it was a top notch performance. No band, just SK, an Apple Powerbook with Logic Express on it, a guitar with effect pedals, A Banjo, a Harmonica and SK’s voice giving us an hour and fifteen minutes of great tunes. He has a huge variety of influences. elements of country, rock, blues, soul, hip hop, dance, folk and pop are apparent right through his show

His onstage patter was good when he showed us his myspace email from a girl inviting him to go Marlin Fishing with a bunch of burly Country Music fans, it even had pictures!!

The performance was interlaced with images and videos from the laptop to a projector. He played “It’s Not Easy Being Green” by Kermit the frog and had footage with the frog singing it in the background, genius. He then told the crowd “he’s a hard act to follow”

Other tunes were played from both of his albums, Simple Kid 1 and Simple Kid 2 (simple in name and in title!!). My favorite Truck On’ and “Staring at the Sun” were on the list as well as tracks from the new one such as his last single “Serotonin”. This is a favorite of Skiv’s, he is a man that appreciates good lyrics and played this track to me a couple of times before and after the gig and I got to say, yeah man, I appreciate the lyrics as well.

“gotta just breathe in, breathe out, breathe. In the city you know, get paid, you get laid, go pretty, can you listen as the doc says: “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, work hard, be fun, don’t eat no junk” ain’t it just enough to make you wanna go get drunk? that’s what I done. Well anyway the drink got me thinking what a friend had said, guess what he said: “Happiness is nothing but the flow of serotonin in your head, got nothing to do with Jesus Christ, nothing got to do with wrong or right, oh help me out Simp, can it be right? that it all boils down to how the chemicals flow to your soul?””

- Serotonin

He is all about crowd participation and had the crowd all singing “Celebrates Go Home to Your Moma” to his great little tune “The Ballad of Elton John”.

The set finishes off with his accoustic track “Average Man” turbo charged by being replace by the music of “Paranoid” to SK’s lyrics and footage of Black Sabbath being projected on to the background.

T’was a great night and I left with a big smile grateful to Skiv for introducing me to this get musician.

Check him out