Live at The Water Rats (London, 18.05.10)

[French dude]

Okay, after posting my first bootleg at Sheperds Bush Empire, I'm now here to post my first bootleg at The Water Rats Theatre Bar. It was his first headlining show in this tiny venue the next day he opened for Eskimo Joe... the 18/05/2010.

This venue was pretty small... probably one of the smallest I've ever seen a band play. It's actually more a bar than it is a venue. But still big enough to accomodate the 200 people or so that we were, desperately waiting for PD to show up. The bar/venue opened at 7pm, we waited around the bar for an hour or so... Hardcore fan (or stalker, I dunno) that I am, I actually arrived around 6.15pm... so the wait was just unbearable!! Once we got inside the proper venue, we waited for 20 min, maybe half an hour for the opening act to come out and play. His name was Stephen Aravena who plays in a band called Morning Lane... that night and the next night, he was playing by himself. He's actually quite alright, liked his voice and the songs he played. You can listen to him and his band on his myspace www.myspace.com/morninglane
Funny thing though about this guy... he's actually Australian too, but he's been living in England for 7 years... so long that he actually lost his aussie accent and now sound more British-y (lol)

Anyways, after Stephen left the stage, I thought "well, Paul plays by himself tonight, so there's not gonna be much wait between the two acts"... duh, wrong!!! we still waited for 20 min for PD to show up. He came down at about 9.30pm

As always, he was smiling a lot... You could tell he was happy to be here on this side of the planet... and see so many people coming to see him play. Well, to be honest, I guess we were definitely more happy to see him... we waited forever, SFK or himself not tourning very often in Europe... I'm not gonna complain, we got to see him eventually... I just wished he could (and SFK) come more often is all.

Anyways, I was front row for both shows he played in this venue... took some pictures and videos... I took two videos for that gig, more the next night... Before starting the gig, Paul received from a fan I met afterwards a stuffed green frog with a message on it... the audience wanted him to read it aloud, but he didn't. That was fun. As always, PD chatted in-between the songs, introducing them sometimes. He played for the second time his new song Survival Expert that got a better response than the previous night as he said. By the third night, we could almost sing along with him.
That night, he did two encores... as he believed that 11pm was the curfew. By escaping the stage the first or second time (can't really remember), he tripped on the strap of his guitar, almost fell... and almost resulting in him crashing his guitar... fortunately enough, he put his foot right next to it... otherwise, that would've been the end of the show ;D
At the end of the show, just like the next night... PD came down again a few minutes after ending the show to talk with the fans who stayed to meet him, take some pictures with us, signing whatever people wanted him to sign. It was just awesome, as always...it was not the first time for me... I'm a bit of a stalker ;D


The setlist is as follows:

01. intro
02. Fast Friends
03. Have You Fallen Out Of Love?
04. Bats
05. Theme From Nice Guy
06. Take Us To Your Leader
07. Beautiful Sharks
08. Survival Expert
09. Ramona Was A Waitress
10. Out The Airlock
11. Bird In A Basement
12. Captain (Million Miles An Hour)
13. The Great Optimist
14. Safety In Numbness
15. Born To Run (Bruce Springsteen cover)
16. Déjà Vu

The bootleg is available right here: www.myspace.com/morninglane The WinZip file includes the bootleg itself, and some pictures I took.
I'll come back to this thread another time... very soon to post the two videos I took from this gig.

[Aurelien]

I think that the download link is probably not the good one, no ?

[French dude]

whoops, my bad... the bootleg is not available on the MySpace of Morning Lane (lol)... It is available here though: www.mediafire.com/file/fr0zfuzygmw/PD - Live at The Water Rats Theatre Bar in London (18.05.2010).zip

sorry for the mishap.

[Thai SFK fangirl]

Hey "French dude", thanks so much for the bootleg

I recorded some video from that night. You can view it here: www.youtube.com/user/PrinceOfCatsInAHat#g/c/6548793C0195AE1C

I must apologise, though, because you can hear me singing and screaming in the videos. You can't hear me in the videos from the second night, though.

This is my (rather lengthy and detailed) blog about this gig. It was written just after the gig and well into the next day, before I went to see the second show at the Monto


Paul Dempsey (solo)
Tuesday 18th May 2010
Monto Water Rats Theatre Bar, London

Set list:
1. Fast Friends
2. Have You Fallen Out of Love?
3. Bats
4. Theme from Nice Guy
5. Take Us to Your Leader
6. Beautiful Sharks [Something for Kate]
7. [new song]
8. Ramona Was a Waitress
9. Out the Airlock
10. Bird in a Basement
11. Captain [SFK]
12. The Great Optimist
13. Safety in Numbness

Encores (not recorded):
1. Born to Run [Bruce Springsteen cover]
2. Déjà Vu [SFK]

To make a long story short, it was a perfect night for me. It was a sublime experience. It gave me a crazy high. Paul is an amazing singer and to have him perform mere feet in front of you is awe-inspiring (I only had one row of people separating me from him; I wasn’t brave enough to be right at the front). It was great that I managed to meet someone who was there on her own too, and now we are friends I just hope I manage to find some friends tonight. Rocking on your own is only half as fun.

The atmosphere was very casual and friendly. There was a lot of banter. I felt like I was among friends, and I was happy.

The only things I didn’t like about the night were the long wait and the dodgy toilets. Before the gig, I was extremely nervous, but after the long wait, all that anxiety evaporated and I was completely at ease, which is one upside. We had to wait almost three hours after doors opened at seven until Paul came onstage. They were doing sound checks for at least an hour after doors opened so we waited in the pub area and drank. Some of us took this opportunity to use the bathroom, which turned out to be sub-par. I’m not sure any of the doors to the cubicles could actually close properly, let alone be locked (the doors seemed too large for their frames). I think only two of the toilets worked. One fellow female said exactly what I was thinking – maybe this is why the theatre is called “water rats”.

While I was drinking and talking with my new friend, we spotted Paul Dempsey himself sneaking past the gathering crowd of fans, completely undisturbed. It was weird to see him in the flesh (after seeing him in so many pictures and videos) in such a mundane situation as getting out of a pub to use the phone outside on the pavement. (I have seen Something for Kate live once before three years ago but I wasn’t very close to the stage. Before that, in 1999, before I was even a fan, my Aussie best friend and I suddenly realised we were standing right next to Paul at the Royal Melbourne Show. Fate? Lol. He kind of looked at us when I whispered to my friend about who he was, but he seemed to put the thought out of his head. We watched him walk away hand in hand with Stephanie, who had just come back from the bathroom or something. We shouted Paul’s name as he went away, and he turned around but didn’t look at us.) Anyway so there was Paul outside the theatre fiddling with a phone (if I remember correctly). He was wearing aviator sunglasses, which we found odd because it wasn’t sunny. Then he walked away and slipped out of sight.

When they let us into the theatre area, we still had to stand around waiting and drinking until the support act came on at about nine. An interesting man: a bare-footed Sydney-sider who sounds British when he talks and (I think) American when he sings. He has a nice voice but not really my flavour.

Paul came on at about quarter to ten in a dark blazer (which he later discarded, then donned again after the gig), a reddish pink long-sleeved button-down shirt (which, after the gig, he swapped for a grey top as you can see in the picture I took with him), black skinny jeans (oh that man knows how to rock skinny jeans) and tan/brown shoes.


Paul made a lot of jokes about being unprofessional as he tuned his guitar in front of us. He also said he had a chest infection ... then he was like, "Oh, that's not very professional, is it, to tell your fans you have a chest infection... No, I don't have a chest infection."

Okay, this is not going to be a normal, straightforward blog about a gig. You have to look at the pictures and videos to get the whole picture. Yes, my mind is a bit scattered at the moment lol.

I must humbly beg your forgiveness for my stupid singing and screaming in the videos (it’s thankfully less noticeable in the videos recorded on my phone though). It’s only when you hear yourself recorded that you realise you’re not such a great singer after all. (Can’t hold a candle to Paul, obviously!) Believe me, I’m ashamed. I facepalmed several times while watching the videos over. Tonight I’ll try not to be so loud.

Sorry I didn’t get the start of Fast Friends; I couldn’t see what I was doing with my camera settings.

Somewhere between songs 2 and 3 Paul wondered out loud why he didn’t get around to this side of the world sooner. I yelled, “ASH CLOUD!” and he reacted, to my delight! (See video) I think it was around this time that he said that although he’ll be living in New York, he’ll be coming to play London a lot more. Yay for fans in Britain!

He introduced Theme from Nice Guy as a song about realising you’re not such a nice person any more. (Geez, he’s super nice now. How much nicer must he have been before? I find that hard to believe. I bet he was much angstier when he was younger.) When we started singing along to the “la da da di da da da da da da” part, Paul remarked that Tuesday night is definitely better than Monday night, referring to Monday night’s gig when he opened for Eskimo Joe and very few people sang along with him. Ah, the curse of the support act. Someone yelled that Eskimo Joe sucked, and Paul said, “Don’t tell them that.”

Paul couldn’t resist the urge to smile when we all sang along to Beautiful Sharks. Aww

After that he played us a newly written song. Since it’s new, thankfully you won’t hear me singing along because I don’t know the words yet!

After Ramona, Paul made some more funnies He talked about the danger of playing solo – it blurs the line between musical performance and stand-up comedy!

At one point when we were shouting out song requests, some guy said, “I’m pregnant!” as if to make his request more important, so I said, “I’m pregnant with twins!” and Paul said he should be the one paying for a ticket to hear this sort of stuff

After Out the Airlock, a guy in the audience pointed out to Paul that one rogue hair was sticking out behind his ear. Hehe glad I wasn’t the only one who noticed

More funnies before Bird in a Basement.

We persuaded him to play Captain. He agreed because he hadn’t played it in a while. I was glad, as this was the song that made me fall in love with SFK.

I really regret not being able to record the whole gig. I think I was almost out of memory on my phone (I ran out of memory on my camera first so I turned to my phone).

I’ll try and record tonight’s gig too, but this time with minimal bad singing!

After Paul disappeared backstage following the second encore, people started leaving. My friend and I were kind of keen on lingering just in case we could get a chance to talk to Paul. We went back to the pub area, where there is a television screen that shows what’s happening inside the theatre area. My friend saw Paul appear on this screen, so we went back to the theatre area, where the people who stayed were taking photos with Paul, talking to him, getting him to sign things. We waited for our turn. I took a photo of my friend with Paul: she stood on the stage while he stood on the floor so they were almost the same height, haha. A woman offered to take a picture of me with them too, but as soon as I was done taking the picture, someone else stole Paul from us! The theatre staff soon told us to get out of the theatre area, so we went out into the pub area. The floor is uneven and there are small steps leading down from the theatre area into the pub area, and I found myself behind Paul as he walked down these. I could have jumped on his back and got a piggy back ride, lol, but I doubt he would have been pleased.

We waited for some more people to be done with Paul, then I moved in and said, “Would you mind . . . ?” I couldn’t get the words out but I held up my camera and he obliged. I said that I don’t mind being the short one, but he kind of . . . stretched one (long, thin, skinny-jeaned) leg out in front of him and lowered his body so that we didn’t seem so much different in height. And that is how I got my new favourite profile picture I can’t stop looking at it; it makes me so happy!

I also asked him to sign my green wristband, which all the members of the audience got branded with upon entering the pub. At first I’d considered getting him to sign my dress because I saw him sign a guy’s t-shirt, but I saw another guy ask Paul to sign his wristband and I thought that might be a better idea. (Although signing my dress would mean he’d have to touch me, I wasn’t sure I wanted my new white dress tagged in black permanent ink.) He rested my wristband on his thigh and signed the white side. I told him I would be seeing him again tonight, “so . . .” So what? I didn’t know where I was going with that, but he just kind of went, Okay. (He did say earlier in the gig that he would perform fifteen percent better the second night, so I could have said I expected to see that, but I was too in awe to form meaningful sentences!)

Once that was done, some more people snapped him up again, and my friend and I didn’t know what to do. We didn’t want to leave but it would be weird to hang around and just . . . stalk him. Lol. With difficulty, we finally left. We were both still high and couldn’t stop saying how awesome it all was.

I’ll be seeing him again tonight, but I don’t know how to handle leaving and not knowing when I’ll see him again! Maybe it’s best to leave with a hug, like a friend of mine is persuading me to do, lol. I’m not sure he’ll be comfortable with that, but my friend reckons I might as well go for it because this may be my only chance. We’ll see

[French dude]

Here I am again... as I said I would, I'm posting the only two videos I took from this gig. They're available in HD here:

Survival Expert: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHc0eCsmVTo

Captain (Million Miles An Hour): www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpjuxIgk0ms

If you like them and wanna keep them... feel free to use keepvid.com to download the HD version or the version that suits you best.

take care
david