Beautiful Insane

It's been a week now since we dubuted our new acoustic album, 'Lens Flare', for all our friends and family. I really should have posted before now, but the shock and surrealism of the night has just worn off, so I feel I can now talk about it with clarity and truth.

The truth is, it was an amazing night, for so many reasons, and some that I'll never be able to put into words. I don't want this to come across as a huge pat on our collective backs, I never did, and that's why I waited to write about it. And I've tried to find bad points about the experience - believe me, I really looked for some. But if I'm here to tell you the truth, then all I can honestly say is... there were none.

Most of the credit for the evening has to go to Chloe and James, as they had set up the most beautiful room for the first listening of the album; candles, amazing foody nibbles, drink and a killer sound system! The room had space for about 15 people. We had nearly 30 there by the time we pressed 'play' on track 1... and suddenly the room fell silent.

And it stayed silent.

I can't speak for James, but I never expected this. I thought the album would be playing, people would sit and listen to parts, chatting amongst themselves most of the time. But I never expected that people would sit listening, for almost an hour, without saying a word or making a sound.

Except for the clapping. Again, something I never anticipated was that people would applaud between every track. I thought we might get it after track 1 cuz, you know, that's the first one and it's over now. But not every song.

I think in a way, I may have underestimated my friends and family. I knew they all wanted to hear the album but we'd been so secretive about it, not letting anyone hear a single note, that after the many months passed I'd assumed they'd almost maybe forgotten about it.

In the past, myself and James have always given little tasters of what we're recording to the people we know - whether it be different mixes or demos. In the case of 'Lens Flare', nobody had heard a thing since last December, and all they knew is that we would vanish to a studio some nights and come back saying cryptic things like "it's getting there", and "needs work".

And these are the people that have come to our gigs when we had a mildly packed room, and made their way to the front. But more importantly, these are the people that have been to our gigs when no one showed up, and still clapped us and chanted, and shouted like they were at the Astoria. I cannot praise them enough.

I didn't think we'd have a captive audience, who'd applaud as if they were watching a live show. There are no words for how that felt.

If nothing else happens with this album, I'll always remember that. And I don't mean that in the hokey, cliched way. I mean that in the sense that I never thought I could able to write that.

Love to you all xxxx