Citation Needed Live: treading softly on my dreams

Just a quick blog post, really to say thank you to you all in more than 140 characters.

And if this scared you, imagine how I felt. Photo: @FreddieH_

It’s hard to say how much the Citation Needed Live Show on Saturday meant to me – I won’t speak on behalf of the other fellers here – as I genuinely don’t have the vocabulary to do so. It’s hard to imagine that when we started in the URY sweaty radio bunker  (that’s me and Tom, though I’d hasten that I just happened to be there at the start) we’d still be going 12 years later, and playing to a packed audience in a massive hall in London. For info, here’s me in the early days of the original Tech Diff singing on our version of ‘Band Aid 2’ from 2004, which featured a brilliant Brian Blessed impression from me.

Oddly enough, we didn’t chart

This was a time, I recall, when we got really excited if we had all of 6 listeners.

Anyway, Saturday.

It’s not an exaggeration to say I was really very nervy about Saturday. My previous stage activity was limited to the Heavy Woollen Scout Gangshow in 1993 (‘My Mummy is One in a Million’ is still a winner at any good Bhar Mitzvah). And we’d never done the show to anyone but ourselves before!  As I’m sure we’ve said before, we record about 35-40 minutes per episode, of which you see about 15-18. That’s a lot of stuff that goes on the floor. And now, we had to entertain a lot of people who had given up money and, most importantly, time, to come and see us. We all had our own way of prepping during the warmup, but I spent most of it on the stairs outside the Green Room swearing quietly. Thankfully, the fire doors were alarmed and also, I didn’t want to let you down.

But what can I say? I wasn’t ready for the outpouring of noise, love, smiles, appreciation, kindness and well, happiness to see us when we walked out. I’m not used to that. It’s the kind of crowd you normally only see at your funeral, so it was nice to get the obituaries out of the way while I’m still alive. Amongst it all, I remember thinking to myself, They’re smiling. And then, of course, I just switched on, made a crap quip and away we went.

I spent some of the journey back up thinking about why I felt so odd afterwards. I wasn’t the popular kid at school.  I didn’t get picked for the football team. I sat in the corner and read books. I wrote silly little stories. I bumbled round in my own little world. I volunteered in the school library and became obsessed with British TV telefantasy. A large crowd of people usually meant other people were going to kick the shit out of me. Those of you that know me will know how hyper-self-critical I am. Basically, I don’t think I was in any way emotionally wired to deal with a crowd of people enjoying what I do.  But – what a way to learn how to handle the feels, as the kids say.

Someone said that we didn’t have an audience on Saturday – we made a network. I can’t make a call on that. What I saw was a sea of people that by and large hadn’t met before but were there because of our mucking about. And it was lovely!

Thank you so much for all the lovely words, the hugs, the photos, the biscuits and everything else.You made a daft, 30-something git emotionally happy.

Certainly never expected to see that. Photo:@FreddieH_