At the restart of our live Homesong gigs we had two artists coming down and sharing the stage.

This happened mainly because I had a lot of people wanting to perform. But from the feedback of the performers themselves, and from my own impressions, I thought it worked really well. The finances earned by the artists, though shared, were still more than adequate; it was nice to have the variety from a listeners perspective; and there was an undoubted sense of togetherness.

Which makes me think that linking up might be a way forward. Certainly from a personal point of view I like the idea of sharing these gigs. The role of Singer/Songwriter can be a lonely one. And it might be easier to motivate ourselves to spread the word, and find new Homesong hosts, in twos and threes rather than on our lonesomes.

Anyway, I’m in the process of trying to repeat the experience here in Kintyre. Coming up at the beginning of November, Kevin Farrell and Gary Carey of H4Life are coming up for some gigs. Yeah!

But if you know of anyone who might wish to host such a thing where you are, then please get in touch. Personally I’m up for travelling to help find new home venues, and I’m sure that many others among the H4Life crowd would be too.

I suspect building a network of home gigs, especially in these beginning stages, is going to come down to the efforts of those of us who are performers. Either hosting them ourselves, finding people to host locally, or travelling to play at existing home venues and then encouraging them to become part of a wider network.

These things don’t happen when we work alone. But they can if we work together.