Rob Deering’s ‘Charmageddon’ – St Davids Hall, 20th Nov ’07

Passing the venue I saw a poster of a comedian I’ve seen on TV a few times in the past. A comedian I don’t remember being particularly great. This aside a few of us decided to go anyway.

The show rolled into motion with a tepid start when Rob entered stage with no introduction leaving people unsure whether they should clap, so only a few people did. Being there felt very awkward.

After a few jokes inducing forced chuckles he introduced his guitar (as he did many times that night) and proceeded to play requests, classic rock riffs and parodies. This warmed up the crowd a little bit but he still had a long way to go before the audience would fully relax. At this point he brought out what is obviously his secret weapon. A guitar pedal capable of recording riffs and looping them. Deering spent much of the night building well known songs from scratch and dancing about a bit. This included singing a song by The Monkeys to the tune of a song by The Arctic Monkeys – ‘Hey, Hey we’re the Arctic Monkeys’… actually that is pretty good isn’t it.

We reached the interval pretty swiftly but I didn’t hold much hope for the second half.

Out comes Rob for the second half. He’s been eating hummus and has a surprise for us all… a second microphone! He records the a capella classic ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ piece by piece and occasionally kicks it in to play while telling sad stories.

The second half would show a completely different person to the first half. The first half being a man with few jokes, unfunny banter and a crowd wondering if the rest of the night would be filled with a guy playing them his favourite songs. The second half was a much funnier, intelligent and often personal trip through Rob Deering’s mind. The gig ended on a request from the beginning of the night (Freebird) followed by Rob handing out inflatable guitars at random and inviting anyone with a guitar to come join his band. Guitars were instantly dropped on the floor by the frightened holders but soon enough he had a stage full of guitarists “smashing” their instruments on the ground. A great ending to a show that started incredibly slowly.