“I Know Where Syd Barrett Lived” – well now I do! @starandshadow

I think I need to start making a list of people who have played as part of ad hoc “Ukulele Allsorts” line-ups. To Do.

Many thanks to Gary Winston Lang of “St James Infirmary” for making wonderful tuba sounds on “Effervescing Elephant” and piano on “Here I Go” at “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lived” at the Star and Shadow Cinema on Saturday 14 June.

No live video, as far as I know, but there were some great photos, mostly taken by Jeff Moore and Cath Tyler, and Gary Lang kindly sent me his audio recording of the set. So I made a “slide sh0w” video for YouTube.

There are loads more photos of the other bands on the Facebook Event Page.

A really well organised event! You can just see in some of the photos that there was a film being screened – silently – at the same time the bands were playing. Before between and after the bands the DJ/AV Guy played a wonderful compilation of tracks. Not just Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd but other psychedelic music from the same period.

The event started with a screening of the updated DVD of the Omnibus documentary from 2002, “The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story” in the Star and Shadow Cinema.  Then there was a video link Q and A with the very chatty and friendly director of the documentary, John Edginton. This added so much to the story.  There was very little mention of Syd Barrett’s family in the documentary and it was good to hear how he had been cared for and protected by his mother and sister in his later years.

It is a puzzling story. Such a happy, outgoing, friendly – effervescent – person to become so troubled and withdrawn.

I was glad that I was listed first to go on after the film as the songs I was doing were so cheerful.

So, to finish, a couple of recordings of those songs made before the event (just me and my uke) and, another very big “thank you” to Gary Lang, some photos of St James Infirmary playing that night.  The biggest “thank you” of all goes to Ian Evans for organising it all!

About Liz Panton (Ukulele Allsorts)

Singer-songwriter, music-maker, organiser and unionista, bit of a geek, life long learner - there is always room for improvement!