Well Tim, that is truly an excellent review of the proceedings last night (very much in line with my thoughts) and it helps very much to have somebody like you doing this for me, as otherwise it could be misconstrued as me trying to brag about the club.

It is an interesting point about when you are told time and time again about how good a performer is. This has exactly the same effect on me. I prefer to see the performers then make my own judgement. You can't or invariably don't like everybody who is on, but one thing I can honestly say, is that everybody who appears works there socks off to provide such wonderful entertainment and that has to be applauded.

I can only try to get the performers to appear. You are the ones that decide if you like who I am putting on. Most people vote with their feet.
Tim
Basically, I listen to what people tell me about performers and try to work out if they will suit the style of the club. Not all performers do, but that doesn't mean that they aren't any good. Far from it. I research performers websites, and the great thing nowadays, is that you can listen to some of their songs. I also get lots of CD's sent to me for review. Again it is a question of trying to decide if they suit the style of the club. CD's only give an idea about the style of the performer, but invariably they have about a dozen support people on the CD's, which makes it very difficult to work out just how good somebody may be. However, the best way is to go and see them live, then you do indeed know what you are getting. There are still a huge number of performers who MRFC haven't seen who are lined up for 2007 once I get the diary together. So as you may see Tim, there is no magic to it. Just a lot of hard work in the research side, which I find fascinating.

One thing that I am really keen on seeing developed on performers websites is something that Jez Lowe and the Bad pennies have on their website. An actual video of the band performing a song live. This helps somebody like me enormously, when you haven't seen somebody before.

At the end of the day, I spend a lot of time on the phone talking to all these performers/agents to see if a visit to MRFC is beneficial for both parties.