May 8th, Thursday. Gig No. 31, Pegasus, The Flying Horse

Another really bad one. Confidence is gone. Vanished. Worst one yet in terms of on stage backbone. Just stopped halfway through, apologised, and walked off. (Actually, 2nd worst, walked off after 30 seconds on Sunday remember) I don’t know what’s happened. I used to be a good act. Surely I was better than this? There are acts who’ve done 3 gigs who are better than me now. Imagine that. You spend 10 yrs learning to play Foggy Mountain Blues, then the Banjo Kid from Deliverance comes along and fucks your dream into a shitty pipe. Afterwards I felt like I understood Nando Torres. I’m just like him. I used to be good, but now I’m a shell of the player I used to be and the confidence is gone. Every once in a while the confidence will come back and I’ll have a good game but then I have a bad game and it's gone again. It’s an awful downward spiral. Vicious circle. Bad game begets wrecked confidence, wrecked confidence begets bad game. I actually do need a break from gigs to regroup mentally now. I’m having a bad gig and having to go straight back out and do another tough gig, just when I’m still feeling too raw to handle it. Usually you can have a bad gig, go away for two weeks, rebuild your confidence, come back and be steady and sure enough to give yourself a chance. You can’t do this shit without confidence. The relentless nature of constant gigging is stripping it away. I feel like a flayed chicken. Which is why I feel like I understand Nandos. You used to be a good chicken, but then you got thrown onto a Nando’s grill and splayed like Jordan’s legs at a smear test. Sorry, too far? Maybe it’s jokes like that are why I’m so low

Another gig tonight. Fuck it. I genuinely need to go away and write some material.

Gig No.31 done. Left to right: Promoter/Comic Luke Gretton and MC Matt Smith