At the Crown last night some anorak from Oxford was wandering around with a badge which read 'Midnight Voices'. He told anybody who'd listen that he knocked ten up on the work's computer.

Jeez, how sad can you get?

This ultra-limited edition was the unofficial precursor of the Buxton Reception badges that coincidentally arrived even as we were all heading for Eastbourne. However, this bootleg identification had the desired effect of precipitating recognition and introduction, and that was how Dave and I met up.

As Dave mentioned, we were deep into anecdotes about when, if ever, we had last done this (what exactly, Dave?), when a dark-haired thirty-something walked in with a purposeful air and headed upstairs. This precipitated some consternation in the duo of dedicated bar-proppers who had wanted the best seats for themselves. The dark thirty-something returned to the bar, and identified himself as Gerry Smith.

The three of us sat, drank and talked for a half hour before the music started. Upstairs in the rather small and crowded venue (extra chairs having been moved in at the organiser's request) Pete had set up his keyboard on the tiny stage ('with no wings to escape into' as he was to wryly observe somewhat later in the evening), and with his acoustic guitar.

The first song was Thief in the Night, played on the acoustic. What a wonderful sound! As the Oxford Anorak had told Dave earlier, he'd never heard Pete play and this admission to the bard himself, together with the confidence that 'he'd waited 25 years for this ...' precipitated some nervousness in the evening's star performer ('Don't say that!' ). But the music and the lyrics came through loud and clear, showing that there is nothing like hearing it live to make it live (Err, if you see what I mean... ).

The evening was peppered with droll gags and one-liners, showing that the inimitable Clive James is not the only one who does the funnys (something they put in the Cambridge water in the late sixties perhaps?), Pete introduced Thief with the 'Happy to let you think I wrote them, but in fact many of them were written by somebody else' line, then, still on the acoustic he segued straight into Care-Charmer Sleep.

He followed with Sudden Arrivals, 'the theme tune from an obscure little TV program in the early seventies' which, incidentally, is also one of the numbers demo'd on the fabled Seventh Album, and then moved on to a number which Pete felt he'd handled poorly the last time he sang it. But this time there were no problems and Screen-Freak generated tears behind at least one member of the audience's closed eyelids. In this number his voice came across particularly strongly. It was like listening to it as it was in the mid-seventies; you remember, when the stereo's valves cranked out the wattage and your still crystal-mint copy of A King At Nightfall had no scratches or modulation noise? I wonder if this song isn't one of Pete's favourites? To accompany SF Pete related that it was written while he and CJ both had rooms in a house in Islington. While Pete was out gigging, Clive had taken a job as a projectionist as a way of cultivating his growing interest in films. [As an aside, many of you who have read the third volume of his Unreliable Memoirs (May Week was in June) will know that Clive's initial interest in films was sparked by the western movie 3-10 to Yuma which he watched, while studying (in the true Oxbridge sense of the word), in Italy.]

Next came Between Us There Is Nothing (apparently 'two semitones higher than I meant it to be...' ) finishing at 9.26 pm, and then it was time for the evening's second offering from the 7th album demos ('concerning a very nasty person indeed but to be perverse I'd occasionally write a bright, cheerful, tune for one of Clive's grimmer lyrics...' ) Thus the world premier of Cottonmouth was introduced to a waiting, well, Eastbourne, with the line 'I don't know how we'd describe our songs except that they've been strangely unsuccessful...' ).

By this time your two reviewers were racing each other to identify each song from the opening bar. Somehow the man in front seemed to sense this and started introducing each number with a melody reminiscent of something, not just from a different song, but often a different album. A comparison of Gerry's and my own notes show that number 7 in the set which we initially identified as Wristwatch was in fact The Luck Of The Draw ! Pete had another surprise here and ran this number directly into Where Have They All Gone, a song that was strangely unsuccessful in the MV poll but whose live performance showed clearly that we could all so easily modify our rankings in the light of forthcoming gigs...

Next was the world premiere* of a hoped-for and very welcome surprise - a song which was for me the highlight of the evening - 'This is a song that we never really discussed but I think came out of Clive's developing interest in TV. It's about information overload...' - and so the Eye Of The Universe opened, impaling us instantly with its baleful stare. Unlike the web-site version this one was played on the keyboard and worked well there too.

The final piece before the interval 'reflects our interest in history' For the first time since the mid-seventies the Errant Knight cantered into view, his MOT now a record 25 years overdue. The number was received by rapturous applause by all in the audience.

After the interval, proceedings restarted with 'a number that I normally do on piano but for sheer devilment will do tonight on guitar'. It was Payday Evening, another number that initially sounded like something else, and which again threw a spanner amongst this reviewer's toiling mental hard-(soft?)ware.

Next, almost exactly at 10.30 pm came 'a very small song, but no less miserable for that', Tongue-Tied.

Following hard on its heels (by special request from the more musically talented of your reviewers i.e. Gerry) was Sunlight Gate.

Perfect Moments started and was immediately stalled by a mental stammer (inflicted by the Eye perhaps?) But Pete caught himself (with only a little audience prompting) and the song was none the worse although I think we were all quietly reminded of the effort it takes to sing and play literate, quality songs for two hours straight.

Pete took requests then and Leslie Moss asked for (and got, to my eternal gratification) Practical Man. Pete took this unexpected request on the chin and reminded us that there were a hell of lot of verses in it. In the event he missed only one (Verse 3 - 'I fixed one chap a show on telly...' ), and despite the fact that 'this song is perfectly accurate, only the facts have been changed', the song's message got through undimmed. Agent, know thyself!

Then came 'a song that is typically Clive, composed during 1973 while listening to the Buddy Rich band, if that watch is self-winding it must be constantly overwound'. But here the tempo was different from the Monyash version and much closer to the original Morgan Studios version (where Barry Morgan also played the drums); consequently - and remarkably for a guitar solo - it sounded very similar to the AKAN version. Pete stuttered marginally on the 'velvet drapes' line but the audience carried him along and he recovered instantly.

To complete the set Pete chose Beware of the Beautiful Stranger ('Canoe's too sad to end on' ) and for the encore 'like Nanci Griffith, there's one song on an album that is never played, never asked for, and it is usually the singer's favourite...' This is a song 'based on the Scottish pearl industry' - The Pearl-Driller. The set concluded at 11.05 pm.

Pete had sung with one ten minute break for two hours.

Richard Corfield