It was after reading the questions that followed that Patrick’s mood changed abruptly from contentment to horror.  “Do you take performance enhancing drugs?” Patrick read, and wondered how his public could doubt his integrity.  “Would you like to buy some?” the email continued. Is this how Joe is able to play at such blinding tempos?

Encouraged by his success in the first set, Patrick was enthusiastically anticipating his next harmonica solo. When the atmosheric moment came, Patrick reached into his pocket and pulled out his harmonica. Unfortunately, he also pulled out the remaing toilet tissue which elegantly flowed from his hand like a dance accessory and came gently to rest on his microphone. Patrick came in a few bars late for that one.

Patrick was feeling less pleased with himself when he looked in the mirror and realized he had fronted the entire gig with a rather large highly visible piece of rosemary stuck in his teeth. Patrick is good at smiling and getting food stuck in his teeth. He had an entire salad stuck to his teeth at the Tim Whitehead gig he played last week.

Just last week, Patrick pulled a muscle in his back whilst lifting his amp out of the car. Unable to bend over to pick up his bass or amp, Patrick found himself stranded on the footpath outside of a swanky hotel. No worries though. Armed with the knowledge of self-massage, he rubbed his back against his car door to massage the strained muscle. The hotel guests in their expensive suits and fancy dresses may have thought he looked strange, but he was able to fix himself up in less than five minutes, grab his bass and amp, and bound down the footpath to his gig with the energy of  a school boy.

The pheasants weren’t the only birds on the road. There were grey walking birds in the road too. All the birds seemed to want to get run over and none of them could quite remember how to fly. Luckily, Patrick’s superior driving skills kept him from running any of them over.

He is performing on several of the tour dates on the Asaf Sirkis Trio – Letting Go – tour. As a result of playing Asaf’s music, Patrick now has a left hand stretch of about 17 frets on the electric bass.

He is also trying his best to prepare for an upcoming concert with Tim Garland. Actually, he hasn’t started preparing for this yet, but he really should be getting on with it.  Tim is a frighteningly good  musician, but there are also several other frighteningly good musicians on this gig, including Joe Locke, Geoffrey Keezer(rhymes with geezer), Neil Percy and Carl Herring. Patrick should be frightened.

Luckily, Patrick is doing a few gigs with Nicolas Meier in amongst all this. Patrick has already been frightened by Nic.