Chapter 1 - The Stack 16/1/25

On the 15th January I saw a post on Facebook from a friend. They were looking for performers to take part in a fun open mic night sort of event, in a very popular location in Lincoln! This was an event called The Sofa Sessions, at the Stack in Lincoln. I messaged and asked if there were any available slots, and there were for the following day on the 16th. I quickly made a short set of 4/5 songs and was ready!

The sofa sessions run from 6:30pm – 9pm. I pitched up around 6pm with a mate. We grabbed a beer and sat down. The organiser came around and had a chat with us all. It was a really nice, chilled evening. Before me there were three other artists (I’m sorry I can’t remember your names, but if I did I would mention them on here!) One guy played piano and sang some original songs, followed by another guy who did more street sort of music, again all originals. Lastly a couple of girls went up and sang a couple of nice songs on guitar and ukulele. At this point it was around 8pm and there was a quick 15 minute break scheduled, during which I was told I was on next!

So, I finished my beer, and headed backstage to the green room where I got Billy (my trusty faithful Takamine guitar, who’s never missed a gig) tuned and ready. I walked out on stage to a huge round of applause from the 30(ish) people in the crowd. We did a quick sound check, I foolish was stood right in front of the monitor while checking the guitar, so I thought it was quite loud and ok. I then moved to the mic and oh… nope its quieter than I thought, and I am already partially deaf. But it was still ok, I don’t like being one of these people mid show to bug the sound techs and ask for monitors to be up, down, left, right! Just trust your ears and the hours of rehearsals you’ve put in! Anyway…

Live at the Stack - Lincoln

This was an evening of firsts:

-          First gig of 2025

-          First performance at the Stack

-          First Sofa Sessions performance

-          First time I got all the words to the songs right! (For those who know me, that will come as a shock)

I played 5 songs in total. 3 covers and two originals! The full set list was:

1.      Year 3000 – Busted

2.      I’m a Believer – The Monkees

3.      Faking It – Charlie Russell

4.      Teenage Dirtbag – Wheetus

5.      Daylight – Charlie Russell

Everyone was singing along, even to songs they’d never heard before! A bit of dancing in the seats and clapping along. All good fun! The 20 minutes disappeared in a flash and before I knew it Billy was back in his case and I was walking back to my table to see my mate. I’d also brought my “Mini Mobile Merch Stand” with me full of CDs just in case anyone still had a CD player in their car, and wanted a hard copy of my latest album. Strangely they did!! I sold 5 discs that night and gained a few new Spotify follows! One of my favourite take aways from the evening was someone saying after:

“You were my favourite tonight”

and then followed up with

“I’m going to google you”

I’ve never been told I’m going to be googled before, or thought of someone googling me so that was fun!!

Clips from the show are slowly appearing on my Youtube page, so as this blog comes to a close, why not go check those out?! www.youtube.com/@charlierussellmusic

Thanks for reading!

See you in the next Chronicles of Cardiac Carl!