Democracy at work... kind of...

I wonder how many other bands out there decide on their set lists this way?

What do you do when you have more songs than you can actually play at your next gig?

It all started after Lennie informed us that she would rather not play Find Me, despite the reaction it got at our last gig. Probably something to do with the fact that we had never played it, during my tenure as guitarist, until the Wednesday before the gig. I then proceeded to nearly make Andy cry when I piped up that I don't want to do Six, which needs a rest in my opinion, before I go and revamp my guitar part for it. Lennie then said, with a very excited look on her face: 'Let's do a ballad!' My first though was 'I'm not sure how a Celine Dion cover is going to fix this difference of opinion, and there's not enough time to work on it be fore the gig...' but it turns out she actually said, and meant, 'ballot.' (Occupational hazard: when you've been playing in bands for as long as I have, your hearing starts to go a bit silly).

So, with paper in hand, we all wrote down our choices. None of us are really sure why we did it this way, as a show of hands would have sufficed, maybe we were all caught up in the spirit of the general election - which by the way, was the first time I ever voted. My dad thinks I'm a disgrace.

Will took the longest to finish, and immediately doubted at least one of his choices. We were all expecting a curveball from Andy. So we folded our papers and put them in the spare mug, taking it in turns to pull the answers out.

We knew there were a few safe seats, Shades of Grey, because it's the single and we still have to shift it, plus we all still like it. Piccadilly & I, because we've just recorded it, our record label loves it, and everyone who's previously heard us play it has loved it too, and it was missed at our most recent gig. A Million Marlborough Lights, because it's our traditional opening number. All three songs got unanimous votes. Out of Rage and Find Me each got one vote, so they're out. Mother Knows Best and Fields got three votes each, so they're in. So it came down to a split decision over Six and Thin Ice. I had earlier suggested that Lennie should get the casting vote in the event of a tie, due to them being her songs. But she was undecided, so it would have to go down to either a coin toss, a rock paper scissors match, or, what Andy ended up doing, which was screw up two pieces of paper and pick one. We ended up going with a fourth choice in the end, which was the 'Butler Swing-o-meter', an imaginary spinning arrow which followed Andy's finger. So Thin Ice made it in. Everyone seems reasonably happy with the result.

Now we just have to decide on the running order.

Six days till gig time...