closing stage

Sunday 25th May 2008

5:00 p.m. CET Had an excellent night last night, again there were plenty of people in the bar for the most part, and for the first time this contract I sang from the start of my 9 o’clock set and did three complete sets from that point on. The audience were very receptive, not least a group I got chatting to who were sat nearby and stayed until the end, made several requests and were singing along to many of the songs. Among them were Tiny Dancer, and Without You (Nilson) which I hadn’t performed since last year. They are due back on the ship tonight so I’m hoping they will be present again!

Didn’t end up going to Knokke today, as the weather wasn’t particularly great earlier, so I stayed on board and started making preparations for going home on Wednesday…

11:15 p.m. BST Had another good night tonight, it was fairly busy again, and that group were back in for most of the evening. Played another array of tunes which I hadn’t performed for a while, including Killing Me Softly, I Write The Songs, Morning Has Broken, and You’re A Lady, all of which had been requested and went down very well. There was another group sat right by me for most of the evening who were making lots of noise but during my last set I placated them by playing a couple of their requests.

Only one more round-trip to go now!

Wednesday 28th May 2008

3:00 p.m. BST I am on the train on the way home now. Monday night went fairly well, it was quite busy but not the most outstanding of evenings. As often happens there was a group sat nearby for most of the evening, who were listening quite intently and made some requests. I reluctantly agreed to play New York New York, which I don’t tend to do very often, but it went down very well and seemed to liven things up a bit. At the end I played The Scientist by Coldplay, which I hadn’t played for a while and went down well.

Last night was pretty quiet in comparison, again not the most eventful of evenings but it went quite quickly which was welcome as it was my last night! I played and sang Love Changes Everything for the first time which was probably the most well-received number of the evening.

After I had finished last night I went down to the show-bar which was pretty quiet too, but this didn’t stop the band playing Nothing Else Matters (I assume for me, since I had said before that I appreciated it).